


The Battle - Part One

by ArtemisArcher83



Series: B Series [13]
Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-04-18 00:14:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 52,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14200704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisArcher83/pseuds/ArtemisArcher83
Summary: 13th instalment of my B-Series. Myka and Helena continue to try to protect their family from the fate that hovers on the horizon while also dealing with the usual ups and downs of parenthood. Meanwhile, Alexander's heir is busy with his own plans.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This page consists of author’s notes and summaries of previous parts in the series. I’d recommend skimming through to jog your memories, though I know I’ve thrown in many plot thickeners that will have fallen through the cracks. I’m my own worst enemy sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, here we go again! Usual jitters and second, third, fourth guessing. You get the picture.  
> It’s been forever since I’ve had something with multiple chapters to post. I had to re-read the entire series again, hoping that I could keep the continuity as smooth as possible. I had to take almost entire chapters out of this next part because they didn’t link with things I’d forgotten, so editing a thousand times is worth it, but it takes forever!  
> I won’t even begin to go into work/life burdens or the fact that I’ve been trying to renovate my house for the last six months. So, while I really hope that I’ve lived up to your expectations with The Battle – Part One, there’s nothing more I could have done. Be kind, please. The end is in sight, but it’s still going to be an uphill struggle to get there.

** The Bubble **

Myka is pulled into an artefact and finds her ex-lover’s dead daughter. After Helena joins her inside the scarab, they manage to send Christina back into the real world. Myka and Helena begin a tentative rekindling of their abandoned relationship.

****

** The Bump **

Now reunited, Myka, Helena and Christina begin to find their feet as a family. An accident at the Warehouse brings Myka into contact with an artefact. As a consequence, Myka finds herself pregnant by Helena. Myka comes out to her family. Helena proposes to Myka with her grandmother’s ring.

****

** The Bond **

Myka teeters between her old life and her new one, unsure whether adventure or family are her first priority. Christina finds her feet in the modern world while Myka becomes an aunt. Strange happenings in Hollywood cause tension between HG and Myka. Myka struggles to let go of her need to be in control while HG accepts that the Warehouse won’t let her go. As they discover that they’re expecting twins, HG is forced to leave to investigate the situation in Hollywood.

Christina from the future defeats her mother and other agents, travels to South Dakota and sends Myka and her younger self to London, 1890.

****

** The Bridge **

HG, in the twenty-first century, struggles to deal with the fact that her family is missing. Her daughter from the future helps, but she continues to poke and push the regents for answers. She discovers some interesting facts about her grandparents and their involvement with the Warehouse.

In 1890, Myka battles with her conscience as she simultaneously tries to resist her fiancee’s past self and find a way back to the future. After giving in to part Helena, an incident with her engagement ring leads to a transfer of one of the twins to HG. Myka realises that Christina is her own child.

As the family reunites in the future, questions and cautions arise regarding some of the regents and their loyalties. Future Christina uses the bronzer to travel back to her own time, relatively unharmed, and we glimpse the happy family in the future with all three of their children.

****

** The Bering Strait **

The family reel from their experiences of time travel and being reunited. Helena recovers her memories of her time with Myka and Christina in the past and finds herself overwhelmed with guilt for her past mistakes. Christina challenges her parents’ rules and restrictions, endangering herself and causing even more tension in the house. Abigail steps in to help restore order.

From Helena’s memories, concerns are raised about Agent Kipling.

****

** The Birth **

Now mostly recovered from their forays into the past, the Bering and Wells family settle into their life together and form stronger bonds with their extended family, especially Tracy. All celebrating birthdays, Christina making new friends and Myka mending a broken relationship with her parents.

An investigation into an artefact that made HG invisible, a strange piece of wall-art and a possible spy in the Warehouse raise more questions about the family’s ties to the Warehouse. Mrs Fredrick hints at some help from the past. The Warehouse prepares to move and plans are made for the future of Helena and Myka’s continued involvement.

Helena is forced to explain more of her past to Christina when the girl learns about her mother’s past relationship with her best friend’s father. Fredrick Charles arrives and the family deals with the usual ups and downs of life with a new baby. Myka and Helena are given permission to explain their unique situation to any family member that they trust. They move their family to Boulder.

 

** The Brides – Part One **

After Claudia revives Helena’s grandparents from an artefact, amidst preparations for the wedding, Helena and Myka feel a renewed desire to demand answers from the other Warehouse magnates. They discover theirs and their enemies’ connection to the curator of Warehouse 1, Alexander the Great. It appears ever more likely that Christina will be the champion to deliver the Warehouse from Alexander’s heir.

 

** The Brides – Part Two **

Since recovering from the reappearance of Mr and Mrs Wells, Myka and Helena get back on track with their wedding preparations and finally tie the knot in England. Returning from their honeymoon in Kent, Helena and Myka announce that HG is expecting.

Myka faces lingering jealousies both in her own heart and from her mother’s, while Helena faces ghosts of loved ones passed. After splitting and sharing the burden of Myka’s engagement ring, they create a visual link – gold and green tethers that bind them.

Claudia’s island headquarters gains trainees and begins to grow. The Warehouse shows signs of sentience as it monitors its pawns from afar, considers its enemy and looks to the future.

****

** The Bonfire **

An interlude for a normal family Bonfire. Claudia reintroduces Thomas (Christina’s friend in Limbo) to the family. Christina and Adelaide take an instant liking to him. HG is not entirely happy with the idea of her little girl growing into a woman.

****

** Behind Secrets and Sacrifice **

1894

Knowing what lies ahead for Helena, Eleanor and Rupert leave England for America with the intention of never returning. Eleanor plants the rings for Myka to find while Rupert sends a telegram home to convince the family that they’re dead. Eleanor struggles with her conscience in light of her granddaughter’s future.

Travelling west, Mr and Mrs Wells meet Gloria Wilson and Irene Frederick in Detroit, Michigan. Over the course of a year, Eleanor and Rupert move to Pierre, South Dakota, meet with Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, MC Escher, Albert Einstein, Henrietta Swan-Leavitt, and prepare for the arrival of Warehouse 13.

A ward is created for Myka and her family and Gloria enables Mr and Mrs Wells to enter an artefact that will hold their essence for the future.

On her island headquarters, Claudia reanimates the Victorian regents.

 

** Conceiving Catherine **

During the first week of their honeymoon, Helena and Myka are given the means to create another life. They (particularly Myka) struggle with the ethics and responsibilities of creating new life when their future is so certain to contain danger. However, in the end, they decide to try.

 

** Stocking Filler **

A ‘normal’ Christmas Day at the Wells-Bering house.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What you've been waiting for...

**Chapter One**

_Rivulets of red sluiced down pale legs and drained from sight. Hard won battles were the messiest but a victory was a victory. War continued to rage, but with one less general in her way, the heir’s tender flank was open and vulnerable. Her deviation, no matter how ill-conceived, could only pave the way for the future, to make the road easier._

_With the last signs of a fight washed from her body, she dressed and gathered her belongings and her wits; an entirely different battle awaited her at home. With the intention of protecting those she loved most, she’d left on a whim, acting on anger and fear and displaying a rashness of thought that she’d spent years taming. She recalled screamed accusations; the bitter words of a neglected loved one thrown in anger. But she wasn’t unfeeling or unaware of the lives of others. She didn’t think herself more important. In the face of these words, she had needed to prove that she was more than the Warehouse’s trained attack dog. Having sacrificed for her family and for her siblings before, she would continue to do so because she was the champion and they should be free to live their lives away from her burden._

_The journey back to Colorado was long and accompanied by a twisting anxiety in her gut that grew steadily as she got closer to home. Thomas greeted her on the threshold of her parents’ house and pulled her into a hug. She welcomed the gesture for a moment, finding comfort in his familiar scent, until she realised that he was trembling. She pushed him back to stare into grief-stricken blue._

_“No...” she whispered in a tone filled with dread._

_Seeing nothing in his eyes that would comfort her, she pushed passed her lover, scurried into the house and followed the sound of sobbing up the stairs. Strong hands grabbed her in the doorway of a bedroom, many voices tried to halt her scrambling panic but she still managed to see into the room. Catching sight of a sheet-covered body, her knees gave out, a cry tore from her throat and she collapsed into the person holding her..._

A sudden wobbling of her bed dragged Christina from her sleep and she opened her eyes to look into a face of fur. “Spyder,” she grumbled at the unexpected awakening before the brief irritation gave way to relief and she reached down to run her fingers through black fur. _A nightmare_ , she thought as she recognised the pounding of her heart. Try as she might to recall the dream, it slipped immediately from her grasp and she settled for allowing the feline’s presence to calm the strange sense of grief and foreboding that lingered in her mind.

“What are you doing, huh?” she whispered to the animal in the pre-dawn light. “Did Cat let you out of your room again?” He purred against her hand as he walked in circles over her chest. Not wanting to return to sleep, Christina gently shooed her visitor away and slid from her bed.

She took a moment to stretch and let her eyes wander around the room. No more the clutter of stuffed friends and half-finished craft projects; all replaced by adult trappings instead. No toy chest or doll house; Catherine had inherited those. Her laptop sat open on the desk, her latest research haphazardly organised beside it – vestiges of her brief attempt to study while back with her parents for the weekend. The rest of the room remained untouched – a freeze-frame of a time when this had been her one and only residence.

At twenty-three her life was split between her parents’ house and her college campus. Both felt like home these days. After graduating high school and a year spent with Claudia at her island headquarters, she’d returned to Boulder to study history and she was two semesters away from exchanging her bachelor’s for a doctorate.

It was perhaps optimistic to think that there was a future for her beyond a destiny that could see the end to her life, but with despair as the alternative and warnings from her Mum’s stories, she knew that hopelessness was not an option if she wanted to win. Having a long-term vision was part of her plan to hold tight to motivation.

Sensing the imminent distribution of food, Spyder trotted to the door he’d opened and hovered, awaiting the human’s presence. Christina followed dutifully while gathering her wayward hair into a messy ponytail.

She put a tiny bit of food into his bowl, knowing that her sister would want to take care of his breakfast, and shut the door behind him, leaving him with access to the outside only. Catherine might like waking to having him curled around her head but their mum didn’t like him having free access around the house. Since he had a perfectly comfortable bed, food, water and a cat-flap, a condition of his living with them was that he stays in his room at night. Catherine wasn’t convinced that he had sufficient company though and sometimes decided that the rule didn’t apply to holidays or weekends... or days ending with a ‘y’.

When Spyder was once more locked away, Christina made her way to the kitchen and started the coffee machine. She filled it with enough water for two people (knowing that her Mama would be up before long) and wandered into the library. This was still her favourite room in her parents’ house. When she was feeling out of sorts or just needed some quiet time, this was the one room in the house where everyone respected the ‘calm zone’ rule.

She plucked a book from a shelf and curled up in the armchair by the window. After kicking off her slippers, she pulled a blanket over her legs and opened The Railway Children. A good half an hour passed before she could shake the churning anxiety she’d woken with. The familiar, much loved characters and setting flitted back and forth in her imagination between insignificant wisps and almost corporeal forms. When she was finally _there,_ standing on the tracks with Bobbie, watching that train bearing down on her, the effects of her dream dissipated entirely and she finally felt able to relax.

She wasn’t sure when her attention drifted away from the book but by the time the door opened and Myka walked into the room with her own kick-start beverage, it was sitting in her lap, hanging loosely from her fingers. The catch closed softly behind her mother and she looked up with a fond smile.

“Morning, Ma,” she greeted and watched as the curly-haired regent sank into the seat opposite her. Taking in the heaviness of the older woman’s eyelids and other tell-tale signs of a late night, she chuckled to herself. “I take it Mum enjoyed her birthday?” she asked as innocently as she could manage.

Myka’s gaze shot up from her coffee and she flushed and coughed. “It’s not every day you turn fifty... Or one hundred and sixty-three.” As she regained her composure, she levelled a frown at the young adult. “And, other than yesterday’s party, I have no idea what you might be alluding to.”

“Of course not,” Christina agreed with a knowing smile. She smirked into the last dregs of cold coffee. “You might want to ask Mum to take it easy on your neck though,” she added and laughed when the older woman reached a hand up to feel for the supposed contusion.

“That’s not funny,” Myka grumbled when she realised that she’d been had. Her frown didn’t last long though as her daughter’s amusement brought a smile to her own features. It was still strange to talk to her little girl about such topics, but nice too that Christina felt comfortable enough to broach conversations that had the potential to be embarrassing for the both of them. Myka’s blush faded before long and her thoughts returned to the book she’d noticed as she entered. “Bad dream?” she asked gently.

Christina’s smile fell incrementally and a frown replaced it. “Maybe. I don’t remember what it was about but...” She shivered. “I wasn’t disappointed when Spyder woke me up.”

Knowing that her youngest had used Helena’s distraction as an excuse to sneak the cat into the house, at that tid-bit of extra information, the regent almost rolled her eyes. Her more pressing concern however was her eldest’s wellbeing. Nightmares happened to most people at various points in their lives and as a mother of three, Myka certainly wasn’t a stranger to dealing with the night time fears of children, but she and her wife had particular concerns about the nature of Christina’s unsettling dreams.

When Christina was much younger, the girl had occasionally woken in the night and crawled into her parents’ bed, unable to shake the intense emotions but equally unable to recall the events depicted in her sleeping world. As she’d developed through puberty, the nightmares became more frequent and though she preferred at that point to sleep in her own bed, she usually asked one of her mothers to stay with her until she dropped off. They suspected that the nightmares were linked to her destiny and the future of the Warehouse, or else they were an unforeseen side effect of her journey home through the bronze, but as Christina seldom remembered any details, theories were all they had.

Growing into an adult, Christina had developed her own methods of dealing. The dreams had lessened in frequency and Myka had to trust that her daughter would ask for help if it was needed. “What time are you planning to set off?” she wondered aloud. “Do you have everything you need?”

These motherly questions brought a smile back to the young woman’s face and she shook her head in amused disbelief. “Ma, I think I know how to organise myself.” She paused as a flyaway thought came to mind and chuckled to herself. “Do you remember that weekend we spent doing nothing but making lists, labels and flow-charts? We had ‘emergency-trip’ competitions. It was like the Packing-Prep Olympics. We gave each other scores for best times, neatest bags and efficiency!”

Myka laughed. “I remember Freddy and your mother weren’t quite sure what to make of us, and Catherine pulled a bag of toiletries on her head.” She wiped a tear from her eye and finished her coffee. “You can’t blame me for wanting to check on you. You’re growing up too fast.” She sighed. “My baby’s in her last year of college.”

Christina smiled shyly. “I’m only down the road, Ma,” she reminded her mother. “I see you almost every weekend.”

“Hmm, for now,” the regent murmured, sounding sceptical. “Until your social life kicks off again. You take after Helena that way.”

“Maybe, but I’ve grown tired of the student parties. I want to focus more on my studies this year. I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to graduate with honours. It’s not going to be easy,” she explained, paused and then quickly added, “And Thomas suggested that we could spend more time here... as a couple.”

At this, the regent nodded and released a long breath. “So your Mum will have no choice but to get to know him better. He’s brave, I’ll give him that.”

“I’m a grown woman. She can’t avoid that fact forever,” Christina insisted, though there was a hint of doubt behind her words.

“Never underestimate a mother’s capacity for denial when it comes to her children,” Myka teased. “She doesn’t dislike Thomas, Sweetheart. You know that, don’t you? Just give her time to come round to the idea that he didn’t corrupt you. You remember how stubborn my mother was with my choice of life partner?”

“He’s not _that_ much older than me,” the young adult protested.

“Not now perhaps,” the mother conceded. “But when you were barely fifteen and he was going on nineteen, it seemed like a much bigger gap.”

Christina rolled her eyes. “Addy had bigger crush on him than I did, and _he_ wasn’t interested in me for ages,” she argued.

“Different perspectives,” Myka continued. “She’ll come around. She’s just trying to figure out how to like him without wanting to knock him out and threaten his manhood.”

This time, when Christina shook her head, it was with fond exasperation. “I imagine that when Catherine starts dating, Mum’ll think Thomas is an angel.” She smiled in sympathy. “I’ll look forward to saying ‘I told you so’.”

“We’ll see,” the regent commented before changing the subject. “Are you working at the shop this Saturday?”

Since Warren had reluctantly retired (for real this time) and passed the bookshop ownership on to Myka, the regent had been working there a couple of mornings a week, alternating with Helena, and Christina had been spending her Saturdays earning some extra money (and a few admirers among the locals). The rest of the week, Myka had hired Jason to manage the business and any other employees that he felt they needed. As an enterprise that had been barely ticking over, in a world where the written word had been vastly digitalised, Myka managed to find a foothold and had made something of a name for herself in the re-mastered bookshop. _Bering and Wells Books_ was well known for its supply of rare and obscure texts, and they’d had to buy extra storage space for all of the online orders they now handled.

Christina nodded. “Just for the morning. Jason suggested that I could take on some accounting if I have any spare time but wants me to focus more on my studies.” She glanced suspiciously at her mother. “That wouldn’t be your influence, would it?”

Myka feigned surprise, a hand held comically against her chest. “Would I do that?” Her eldest gave her a very Helenaesque eye roll, which made her chuckle. “I know you enjoy being in the shop, but you need balance and you already said that you want more time to study.”

“Which is why I’m giving up on the after-hours parties,” the student reiterated.

“Well, then spend more free time with Thomas, or your friends and family.” Myka sighed. Her daughter was driven and she wanted to make sure that the young woman took time to enjoy herself. “Promise you won’t just work all the time. You know you have nothing to prove to us.”

Hearing the carefully controlled emotion in her mother’s voice, Christina rose from her seat and perched on the arm of the regent’s chair. “Ma... I’m not going to waste my life living like I have all the time in the world, but neither am I going to live like tomorrow is my last day. You worry about me... and Freddy and Cat... about what will happen in the future, but we have to just get on with life until then.” She placed a kiss on top of a mass of still-dark, but steadily-greying curls and let her words sink in for a moment. “Besides, while I may have grown tired of the wild parties, I still have fun. I’m still undefeated in shot-chess.”

Myka snorted a short laugh. “You know that only makes me worry for a different reason.”

The young adult collapsed back into her own chair and waved a dismissive hand. “I never lose _that_ many pieces!”

By the time the pair had finished comparing their nerdy college experiences, the rest of the house was stirring and they returned to the kitchen to start breakfast. While most days they took care of their own breakfast needs, Myka and Helena insisted on a family breakfast around the dining table at least once a week and with Christina having stayed overnight, getting together was even more important. It was easy for all of them to get lost in their own activities and the weekly tradition was there to ensure that they didn’t completely lose touch with one another.

Catherine’s careless footfalls hurried down the stairs first and she hovered inquisitively between her mother and sister, trying to snag pieces of cheese, tomato and mushroom before they went into the omelettes. Unbeknownst to each other, Christina and Myka both gave up morsels of food before directing the eleven-year-old to set the table.

Helena was next to make her way down, her light step barely heard on the stairs. As she entered the kitchen, Christina’s first clue that she was there at all was the smile that Myka reserved especially for her wife. The inventor’s arms immediately found their way around Myka’s waist and there the couple swayed gently together, whispering to each other for several minutes while their meal took shape.

At last, Fredrick wandered dozily from his room and through the house - just in time to see the food arrive on the table. He slumped into his chair, grunted a squeaky ‘thanks’ and fell into his omelette like he hadn’t eaten for a week. His mothers shared an amused look but otherwise left the teen alone. Teasing could wait until he was awake enough to appreciate it.

“Do you have any plans today, Fredrick?” HG asked as she finished her last mouthful of egg and began sipping at her tea. The teen shrugged and reached for a banana, shoving half of it in his mouth before beginning to speak (and deliberately ignoring his mother’s raised brow). “Sophie wants to work on our project. I’ve done most of the outline. She wants to get on with the artwork. And I want to head to the pool later to put in some time before my next meet.” He turned to his older sister as he finished his post-breakfast snack. “Is Tommy still free next Saturday? He said he could spend a couple of hours coaching me.”

“Yes,” Christina grinned at her brother, enjoying the reluctantly thoughtful expression on Helena’s face. “He’s looking forward to it.”

“It’s nice that the two of you get along, sweetie,” Myka offered across the table and shared a conspiring wink with her eldest while squeezing her wife’s knee beneath the table. “Do you mind if we come and watch? We’d like to see how you’re getting along.” She knew that Helena would be just as interested in seeing their son’s progress and felt approval flow from the inventor as soon as the words left her mouth. That it offered an opportunity to see Thomas in a different light was merely a happy coincidence.

Waiting until her parents seemed engaged in conversation, Catherine emptied her plate, inched to the edge of her seat and tried to sneak away. She reached the door, slipped through and thought she was home free for a single, magical moment... Then she heard her name and her shoulders slumped. She stuck her head back through the door, her expression unassuming as she answered, “Yes, Mum?”

“Plates, please,” HG instructed her youngest with a knowing expression. She watched as Catherine resigned to her task and began helping to clear the table. A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth and she began reaching for her own table-wear to hide her amusement. “Fredrick, help your sister please,” she told the teen, who was surreptitiously glancing at his phone under the table. “And put that away. Now is not the time or place.”

“I wish we had servants like you did in London,” Catherine grumbled as she left the dining room with an armful of plates and cutlery clanking around. “We must have enough money.”

“You have arms and legs, do you not?” Christina smirked at her sister as she followed her siblings (sans plates) into the kitchen. “Besides,” she added teasingly, “it gets rather dull after a while, having people wait on you all day. In and out, constantly bringing you things and asking if you need anything else.” She feigned a sigh of exasperation and perched herself at the kitchen island, watching the eleven-year-old for her reaction.

Catherine’s face scrunched in thought as she imagined her sister laid out like a lady-muck, with servants coming and going, catering to her every whim. “That’s not fair! Mum, did Chrissie really have her own servants?”

Helena shook her head at her eldest, came to stand behind her and squeezed her shoulders in just the right place to make her body fall in on itself.

A burst of startled laughter accompanied the young woman’s sudden struggle for escape. “Ah-hahaha! Mum!”

“Of course not, dear,” HG began patiently, even as she continued to torture her captive. Skilled hands found responsive nerves, buckling the young woman’s limbs and eliciting a series of squeals that belonged to someone half Christina’s age. “Uncle Charles had a house maid but she did not wait on your sister.” Her fingers stilled now, allowing her daughter to recover her breath, instead reaching to soothe through dark curls. “She had chores, just as you do, flower. Even at my parents’ or great-grandma Elle’s, where there were a number of servants, much was expected of her and with none of your modern conveniences.” She looked down into sheepish brown and her lips finally twitched into a smile. “Don’t tease your sister, lest you’re prepared for the consequences. You should at least make the ground even.”

“That’s no fun,” Christina replied with a grin.

“But much more honourable,” Myka added as she finished putting the last of the jars away and turned to join the conversation.

“Honour amongst rogues?” Freddy commented as he finished rinsing the last tumbler and emptied the soapy water from the sink. Deciding that he’d prefer not to be around if his younger sister took umbrage at the teasing, the teen retreated to the doorway. “Ma, may I go to Uncle Pete’s now?”

“Yes,” Myka answered her son as he disappeared from the kitchen. She heard his bare feet slapping against the wooden floorboards and called out to him before he reached the foot of the stairs. “Be back by five!”

Christina pushed herself off her stool and tucked it in. “I should get going too. I want to hit the library for a couple of hours...” She felt Myka’s gaze on her and held up her hands in supplication. “Which will free up my evening so Thomas can take me to dinner,” she finished, recalling their earlier conversation.

“Are you gonna get drunk and have a wild party?” Catherine asked as she threw her dishtowel to one side. “Have you ever been arrested?” Her excited curiosity held for a fraction of a second before she made another connection. “Wait! You said you’d help me with my homework!” she accused as her expression fell into a pout/scowl.

Sensing the impending argument brewing between their daughters, Helena and Myka reached out for each other, their thoughts and feelings passing more easily through the physical connection. By mutual desire, they decided to leave the girls to it and wait until they were needed – if they were needed. They left the kitchen and the bickering voices behind as they wandered across the entrance hall to the living room.

“Do you think our girls will ever just ‘get along’?” Helena wondered as she sank into their favourite chair and pulled Myka’s body against her own.

The taller regent chuckled as she kicked off her slippers and tucked her legs beneath her, the position pushing her naturally into her wife’s embrace. She turned her head slightly and managed to kiss Helena’s chin. “Honey, they’re sisters. I think you’re hoping for the impossible; you’ve seen Tracy and me when we’re at our worst.”

“How could I forget?” HG played with wayward curls and breathed in her wife’s scent. She felt her insides clench at the memories that particular aroma evoked. Those from the night before were forefront in her mind. “We should simply send them into the woods and tell them not to return until they’ve sorted out their differences,” she suggested, thinking of the area of forest that cushioned the boundary of their property; the area that was protected before the trees led into deeper wilderness.

Myka smirked. “This plan wouldn’t have anything to do with last night’s suggestion, would it?” she teased.

“Why is it that you continue to oppose me on the subject of re-christening the house?” the inventor complained as her fingers traced over a rounded shoulder.

“Perhaps because I don’t want to permanently traumatise our children?” Myka answered, humour lacing her tone.

“Pfft!” HG scoffed before letting her lips fall to an inviting expanse of skin at the nape of her wife’s neck. “Is that not what parents are for?”

Myka allowed her eyes to flutter shut while she enjoyed her lover’s attentions. “You’re incorrigible,” she whispered in a tone that suggested that she didn’t mind in the least. “Maybe once they’ve all moved out?” she suggested as her body responded to the inventor’s touch and her mind warmed to the idea.

Helena groaned. “You do realise that you’re suggesting we wait another decade?”

The younger woman turned in her wife’s arms and smiled down at her. “Are you worried that you’ll be past it by then?” She leant in to brush her lips against the shell of an ear as she added, “My old lady.” She jerked back as fingertips found her ticklish sports and chuckled at dark eyes, which narrowed in warning. It was a look that never failed to spark heightened desire and she met the inventor’s pout with her own lips, her kiss soothing any modicum of offense.

As often happened when they were left to their own devices, with nothing pressing on their schedules, the couple allowed themselves to get lost in each other’s presence. While that didn’t always involve kissing, embers of their recent lovemaking reignited, encouraging that lingering passion. The world fell away as Helena pulled Myka onto her lap and lost a hand amongst wild curls. At some point, they became aware of other people close by and the combined sounds of giggling and fake retching. Lips that were pliable and focussed became taught and they pulled into matching smiles. They parted slowly, neither regent finding a need to apologise for their adolescent behaviour.

Myka flicked her hair back as she turned her head to grin at her daughters. She made no effort to leave her wife’s arms, but simply settled comfortably into willing arms as she felt Helena’s fingers stroke lightly along the skin of her lower back. “Yes, girls?” she asked, inviting them to talk.

Catherine stood with her arms folded across her chest, one foot tapping the floor with comic disapproval. Behind the pre-teen, Christina hovered, her cheek caught between her teeth. “Don’t you two have a room?” the eleven-year-old challenged her parents, the words recited verbatim from her Uncle Pete.

HG responded immediately, her grin mischievous. “We do indeed. You heard the girl, love. Upstairs!” Far from being offended or angered by Catherine’s audacity, she took the suggestion on board and began to move, with Myka still in her arms.

Myka splayed a hand over Helena’s face and pushed her gently but firmly back into the couch cushion, knowing that only _her_ opposition would halt her wife when she was in this mood. “Stay,” she instructed, while ignoring muffled protests. Her smile remained amused even as she kept her gaze on the two youngsters. “Did you sort out your argument?”

“I’m going to help her get started and come back next weekend to help her finish,” Christina explained. “And next time, she’s not going to wait until the last minute.”

Cat pouted. “I _did_ ask you on Friday,” she complained. “ _And_ we had a party.”

Christina shook her head with exasperation. “You had five hours yesterday afternoon to start your homework. I heard Mum asking you if you’d started it yet!” She shook her head again, looking down into her sister’s hazel gaze. “Come on,” she finally gave in, grousing as she led the way towards the stairs. “I haven’t got much time.”

Catherine grinned and jogged after her sister, her parents forgotten in the face of her victory. “We can be quick! I’ve got a great idea!”

With an increasingly serious expression falling over her features, Myka watched her children disappear from the room. Her thoughts meandered through a forest of concern and disapproval as she considered Catherine’s behaviour and tried to come up with a practical solution. Her eyes drifted, gaze falling to the floor, forgetting where she was until teeth and lips wrapped around her middle finger and she was dragged back into the present.

 “Hey!” she protested indignantly, turning to find amused brown gazing back at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect the usual weekly update.  
> Please comment!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In editing this chapter, I realised that I should probably include a few warnings for the rest of the story.  
> 1\. It's going to get darker and more angsty.  
> 2\. There will be insignificant, minor and major character deaths.  
> 3\. Sporadic violence and sex throughout.
> 
> I plan to split The Battle into three parts. I am still very much a 'happy ending' kind of person. Tears of happiness will be my aim for the end of Part Three, but it's going to be a bumpy ride in getting there.
> 
> So, if you're still with me, here's chapter 2...

**Chapter Two**

After a slight tussle, where Myka tried to capture her wife’s hands to fend off fingers that itched to tickle in revenge, the couple sank into one another again, lips finding lips as they made the most of the alone time.

They were forced to part before things became too heated and the brunette twisted to recline against her partner while her thoughts turned back to their children.

“Perhaps we should help Cat to make a schedule for her homework after all,” Myka mused in the quiet that followed. “She doesn’t seem to be making much of an effort to organise herself.”

Helena sighed and took a moment to think as her left hand traced patterns over Myka’s shoulders and arms. “She enjoys the chaos.” Catherine’s free-spirited nature fascinated her more often than not, so when she found herself in conversation with her wife over their youngest daughter’s behaviour, a slight tension always rose between them.

“Hmm. That’s where she takes after you,” the brunette observed. “Which isn’t a bad thing per-se, but she does need to learn to prioritise. She can’t keep disrupting everyone around her when it suits her whim.”

“We’ll help her find a way to balance her interests and responsibilities somehow, love,” HG smiled down at the green orbs looking up at her, even while her own eyes glazed over slightly and her mind took her elsewhere.

Noticing the distracted expression, Myka rolled her eyes and hopped off HG’s lap onto the sofa opposite. “She’s not a baby any more, Helena. The whole point of leaving her to do her homework in her own time was to teach her to take more responsibility for her schoolwork. So far, she’s just taken advantage of the situation; she leaves everything ‘til the last minute and then ropes someone into helping her to get the work done.”

The inventor sighed again. This morning was rapidly deviating from the path she’d hoped it would take. “Then we shall let her know when we are available and refuse to help if she chooses not to take advantage,” she suggested hastily, knowing what her partner wanted to hear. As predicted, her wife appeared to relax as she considered the proposal. “She is still young, Myka, and has yet to serve a full term at school. Give her time, she will learn. We should not be in such a hurry to see her grow up.”

Myka’s eyes narrowed; she wasn’t fooled by the plural pro-noun; there was no _we_ in her wife’s caution. “I’m not, but neither am I deluded into thinking that she is too young to show some maturity. You may not want to acknowledge it, Helena, but she is beginning her journey to becoming an adult.”

Something crackled between the pair. All of their children were the cause of immeasurable joy in their lives, but when it came to causing dissention in the ranks, Catherine won most times; either by her own means or through her parents’ differing opinions on how they should mould their princess. Although both adults agreed from the start to treat their children with as much equality as possible, Helena, whether she was aware of it or not, sometimes made extra concessions for their youngest. With Myka’s eidetic memory, attention to detail and fondness for order, the issue was a regular bone of contention between the couple.

The empathic connection that remained between them usually helped to make their disagreements short-lived, but then there were times when they just had to shut it down for an hour or two before trying to find some common ground. This was one of those times. Myka had discovered early on that she had a propensity to give in to her wife’s desires when she could feel the strength of it through their bond, so learning to control when she could and couldn’t feel that echo was still a priority.

 There were many occasions when that echo worked in their favour, of course. Knowing when to use it and when not to was still a work in progress.

HG forced back a pout, trying not to let her wife know that she was sulking. She had been delighted to see the similarities between Christina and Myka, and later with Fredrick; it had concreted the reality that her lover really was this integral part of her life. As the twins aged, their preferences for order became more pronounced, bringing them closer to their Mama. In stark contrast, their young sister was the spitting image of their Mum in her youth. They all had their own unique personalities, complete with quirks, but of the three, Catherine shared Helena’s devil-may-care approach to life and her antics never failed to incite the inventor’s inner child.

Unwilling to concede her position yet, HG straightened in her seat. “Darling, I am well aware that she is fast approaching puberty, but she’s bright and if we tighten the reigns now she might never believe that she _can_ achieve these milestones.” She rose from the couch and wandered towards the fireplace. “You yourself have said that we shouldn’t stifle her creativity.”

Myka rolled her eyes. She didn’t disagree in principal but she was annoyed by her wife’s unwillingness to appreciate the inequality she nurtured in the treatment of their children. Recalling Helena’s earlier suggestion, she changed her focus and rose to join the inventor. “You’re sure that you can ignore her if she comes to you after a deadline?”

Helena considered the question carefully. A tiny voice in the back of her mind was quick to acknowledge that the American did have an instinct for these things, and it was after all her suggestion, so when she did finally nod, it was stronger this time. “We’ll speak with her once Christina returns to the campus.”

“Thank you,” Myka acknowledged and leaned in to wrap arms around her soul mate. Relief flooded through her and she realised how much she’d been expecting stronger opposition; genuine arguments with Helena were always ugly affairs.

HG savoured the moment and allowed most of her annoyance to wash away. “Who knew that making such decisions would be so vexing?”

“Well,” the brunette began as she sought for something to sweep away any remaining antagonism. “We do have a tendency to over think these things. That’s what Pete says at least.”

Scoffing, the inventor observed the knowing glint in green eyes and smiled at their shared amusement. “Over-thinking is inevitable for most who come into contact with him.”

“You’re mean,” Myka observed lightly, though she hadn’t expected anything less.

“Hmm,” Helena felt their flirtatious banter returning and revelled in it. “You love me,” she whispered against yielding lips.

The brunette’s mouth tightened into a teasing smile. “What on earth would give you that idea?”

Before they could begin to get comfortable again or contemplate what uses they could extract out of their fore-planned, lazy Sunday, a curious but familiar sound floated in from the entrance hall, warning them of a new arrival. HG groaned at the unexpected interruption and adopted an exasperated expression as she turned to face their visitor, who entered the room with one hand covering her eyes and the other feeling the air in front of her.

“Hello, Claudia,” the inventor grumbled good-naturedly.

“Is it safe?” the redhead wondered. “Artie says I’m doomed if I use Freud’s couch again. He wasn’t big on the specifics but we already have one member of the team whose relationship with food borders on the obscene.”

“It’s fine, Claude,” Myka assured her friend, quickly taking pity on her. No matter how much knowledge or power the caretaker gained, the regent couldn’t help but see the awkward kid she’d met so many years ago. “We’re dressed this time.”

The techie released an audible sigh, dropped her hands and scampered into the room to stand before her friends. “Thank God because as much as I love you guys, last time was an over-share!”

Helena crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes. She shared her wife’s fondness for the caretaker, their relationship being a complex mix between: friend (and accessory to mischief), mentor and occasional mother figure, but as with Pete, the shortage of social boundaries often irked her. (A decided contrast to how she expected Catherine to behave, so her wife was always quick to remind her.) “Perhaps you should reconsider adopting the art of knocking and waiting.”

The redhead shrugged, a teasing gleam in her eyes. “Eh, where’s the drama in that?”

Dark eyes narrowed in response. “You wanted something, Claudia?”

“Yeah!” She darted towards her favourite armchair, kicked off her shoes and sat with her legs crossed, facing the couple. “So, guess what the KAGs and I discovered?”

“Claudia, I have repeatedly asked you not to call them that,” Helena grumbled as she took her own seat and pulled a chuckling Myka down with her.

“But they’re kick-ass... Fine. Guess what Elle, Rupes and I found?”

* * * * *

The tall, artfully designed building overlooked crystal waters and golden sands, its many windows offering what should have been calming, rejuvenating sights, if one were permitted to look. In the penthouse suite though, all was not well.

Glass hit stone tile with a resounding crash, the force of it scattering a shower of needle-sharp stars over those sat closest. Any hushed voices that may have crept cautiously around the room died in that instant and sank another meeting into anxious silence. All eyes fixed on their leader, waiting with baited breath for the next eruption.

As usual, Lloyd Spenser-Chapman’s voice rose barely above a whisper as he stared unblinking along the attendees, regained his seat and fisted his hands atop the table. “You are aware that for my destiny I have almost infinite patience,” he began with quiet fury. “That motivation to stay my hand does not extend to members of this organisation who disappoint me. The likes of Ms Ingress and Mr Congrave should expect no quarter when they choose to disregard my instructions.”

It could have been a trick of the eye, or a flash of light reflecting off an adjacent sky-scraper, but for the barest moment, those who had dared to look directly at their leader in that second watched in horror as the heir’s features shifted. Eyes sank into fiery darkness, flesh and skin moulded to bone, and an unseen force tugged lips into a demonic smile.

Like the latest horror flick, the monster appeared and then was gone, back into whichever shadows it lurked. But unlike a movie, it left its viewers with a bottomless sense of dread that no amount of rational thought could reason away.

“Someone in this room thinks that they are wiser than I. Thinks that their tiny mind holds more wisdom than can be accumulated in two millennia. Someone who dares to defy _my_ orders!” SLAM! Fisted hands impacted the solid oak, sending deep cracks running along the finely crafted surface.

Lloyd grew menacingly from his seat and began to walk around the table. As he passed one chair to another, he drew manicured nails along the leather, the soft scratching drilling into each occupant. “You have been given the privilege of witnessing greatness. A privilege you choose to squander when you gamble with my plans.”

Passed the halfway point, the tension in the room thickened; they all knew what was coming. Even those who he’d already discarded in his wake dared not relax. The only questions on their minds now – who was marked for death and which cruel and unusual method would their leader choose?

When it happened, it was in the blink of an eye. Lloyd hesitated for a fraction of a second behind a sallow looking gent in a pin-striped suit, glanced sharply at the back of the man’s oily hair and before their eyes, he was hoisted into the air, his legs kicking frantically as fingers clawed at his neck, fighting desperately, pointlessly with a hangman’s noose. By the time Lloyd had returned to his seat, a hint of a satisfied smile lingering at the corner of his mouth, his victim’s body jerked feebly for several seconds and then became limp.

The heir’s temperate amusement lasted the length of time it took for the recently deceased body to fall back into its seat and slump awkwardly against the table. Handsome features darkened into an ever more menacing expression and the room held its breath. “Find the dissenters. Discover how this _filth_ ,” he gestured vaguely in the direction of the corpse, “disguised their movements, and then bring them to me.” He sat back in his chair, his gaze distant, ignoring the movement of bodies around him as he imagined various means of punishment. “I will demonstrate once and for all the consequences for defying me.”

* * * * *

As she and Myka waited for Claudia to share her news, Helena thought back to the last time the caretaker had visited with surprising discoveries from her grandparents...

_Eleanor smiled warmly as her granddaughter and Myka entered her kitchen, followed closely by the excitable caretaker. Having heard them chatting on their way towards the house, she’d already flicked the switch on the kettle and popped tea bags into the pot on the table. By the time her guests were in sight, she was pouring boiling water into the pot and throwing a cosy over it._

_It seemed impossible that she and Rupert could still feel so spritely; they had been just shy of seventy when they left the preparation of Warehouse 13 in the hands of Gloria Wilson. Though physically their bodies should be feeling the strains of eighty years, if anything, over the last decade, they had only felt younger. Recent discoveries had shed some light on this phenomenon._

_Mrs Wells pulled all three women into individual hugs before ordering Claudia to find the teacups. “Your grandfather’s just popped next door; they’ve gone away for two weeks so we’re keeping an eye on the house. He still has a fascination with rabbits, the daft, old coot, so he could be there a while.”_

_Myka chuckled to herself and Eleanor winked across the table. The curly-haired regent relaxed into her chair. “So what’s the big news? Claudia says you think you’ve figured out how the stone works?” she asked as she accepted a cup and saucer from her wife._

_The older woman took her seat and a sip of her tea as she gathered her thoughts. “Well, my dears, you all know how much I despise being modest,” she began with her usual tongue-in-check tone, “but I really do feel that Miss Donovan should be the one to share this story; it’s her genius that provided us with answers after all.”_

_Adopting a ‘who, me?’ expression, the redhead palmed her heart and batted her eyelids. “Aww, shucks. Just call me King Claudia...” she paused and gazed at the ceiling as she thought aloud, “or maybe something catchier. I’ve been thinking about a title; caretaker is too... pedestrian. Maybe Bodacious Claudia or Claudia the Magnificent?”_

_“How about Concise Claudia?” HG suggested flatly. “Were we summoned for an explanation or is this a guessing game?”_

_“Oh Helena, do stop being such a fuss-budget. Have a little patience, she will get to it,” Eleanor scolded her granddaughter gently. “Carry on, dear,” she added as she turned back to the young caretaker._

_Unseen, Myka placed a hand on her wife’s knee and squeezed slightly. Helena’s irritability had most always been for show but Myka could feel the difference when it wasn’t, and recently those genuine occasions had become more frequent. She made a mental note to dig a little deeper when they were alone._

_Rather than the awkwardness she’d often felt during her younger days, Claudia was finally comfortable and confident in her role, acting every bit the little sister as she stuck her tongue out at the inventor and made a show of cracking her knuckles before starting. “Ok, so we all know the back story: Cronus eats his children, Rhea feeds him the stone in place of baby-god, Zeus, future chief of Olympus grows up and kills daddy dearest, releasing his brothers and sisters.” She paused and shrugged as if to say ‘myths are weird’ and then continued as if nothing had happened. “In reality, two elements: quartz (being a natural time keeper), and firm beliefs of ancient civilisations, fused together to create an artefact that exists in linear time and is capable of converting between matter and energy.”_

_“Which is why you and Grandpa emerged unchanged. As energy, you were continuously being recycled,” HG added, recalling the conclusion they’d arrived at originally. “How does that account for the fact that they’ve stopped ageing?” she turned back to Claudia._

_“Technically, they haven’t_ stopped _ageing,” the redhead began cryptically. At two sets of questioning eyes, she elaborated. “Elle and Rupes’ life forces are bound to the stone. It sustains them and their lives depend on it. In order to do that, it became a part of them; they are still imbued with that recycling energy.”_

_“And we’re optimistically happy about this?” Helena wondered aloud as she tried to figure out what the down side would be._

_While the inventor was struggling with her grandparents’ uncertain mortality, Myka’s thoughts were in another place. “How did you discover this much?”_

_Eleanor received a curious look from the caretaker and nodded slightly; this was her part of the story to tell. “After our initial suspicions were piqued and we decided that further investigation was needed, over a number of weeks, Doctor Calder agreed to monitor our physical health. The results were considerably puzzling at first, defying what we know of human biology. However, with Claudia’s input, they agreed that, instead of degrading, as normal cells do, Rupert’s and mine were regenerating.”_

_“Not only that,” the redhead jumped back in with excitement. “But they’re improving!”_

_The Wells-Bering couple sat in stunned silence as they absorbed this bombshell and processed the repercussions. While both were more caught up in being full-time parents than anything else these days, still neither proved too slow on the uptake as they soon reached the same conclusion._

_“You’re ageing backwards? Becoming younger?” HG eventually voiced in a tone full of disbelief and tinged with the faintest hint of envy. “How?”_

_“The stone works like a mirror,” Myka theorised out of the blue and immediately turned to her wife to find her favourite sounding board. “Or a house of mirrors, perhaps? It absorbs matter as energy, multiplies it and reflects it back.”_

_Absorbed in the science, Helena’s frown morphed slowly into something quizzical and hopeful. “The body’s cells receive an overabundance of energy and are able to repair organs that would otherwise slowly begin to break down.”_

_“Exactly!” Claudia yelled in delight and then sank slowly back into her seat when three pairs of eyes gazed at her in amusement._

In the aftermath of that discussion, Myka had watched and shared her wife’s feelings of happiness, relief and newfound concern. Their worry about how long the Wells couple would remain with them had all but disappeared. In its place came the question of just what would happen if they continued to get younger.

Claudia was far too excited for her news to be about the older couple’s lifespan though. It hadn’t taken long after discovering their reverse ageing for the redhead to become suspiciously blasé about the subject. Myka and Helena had learned to trust their friend again, so – while they were curious – they knew they would have answers when the time was right.

“Do you really want us to guess?” Myka asked through a fond smile. “Have you discovered the secret to alchemy?”

Helena smiled to herself and then broke into chuckle at a stray thought. “Have you discovered green?” she added, knowing that the redhead would immediately catch the reference to their latest box-set binge.

“The finest green - hah! No, I wish; I’d be so rich!” Claudia rocked slightly in her chair before fixing her gaze on the regents. “No, we think we’ve found the answer to your non-functioning tele-porter, HG.”

Eyes immediately lighting up with interest, the inventor shuffled forward in her seat. “Really? Where?”

“In the middle of the Australian outback,” Claudia replied before diving into her explanation. “According to classified NASA files, a long-distance probe went missing shortly after the first moon landing, but no one wanted the bad press so it wasn’t publicly announced. It was spotted recently, badly damaged, and while some of it burned up on re-entry, enough might have survived to be worth a salvage mission.”

“You think it came through a wormhole?” Helena wondered.

“A sporadic one. Something too unpredictable to make easy to track in the seventies,” the caretaker agreed.

“And you’re hoping that it’ll have artefact properties?” the curly-haired brunette asked. “You want us to search for it and retrieve it if we can?”

“That’s up to you guys,” Claudia allowed. “I brought it to you first ‘cause I know it’s HG’s baby we’re looking to bring to life, but you could be gone for a couple of weeks and I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about leaving your actual babies.” She observed their pensive expressions for a moment and fidgeted with repressed excitement. “I could send team Lynx?” she suggested.

Myka’s serious expression relaxed as she thought of her best friend and his probable reaction. “I’m sure Pete would jump at any excuse to escape the building teenage angst that follows Sophie around like a cloud these days.” She turned to her wife. “Do we really want to leave this to him and Steve though?”

Feeling the indecision rolling off her partner, Helena knew exactly what Myka meant by her question. She was the one, with her ambitious tinkering and inventing, who had been waiting for an opportunity like this. With a completely unknown entity, they were reluctant to fob the responsibility off on their friends when the situation could prove dangerous, but equally, they had never been away on a mission together for such a long time.

For their tenth anniversary, they’d taken a week’s break together as a second honeymoon, but they’d barely even left the state (or their hotel room). Other than that, the longest they’d left their children with sitters was for two nights that they spent in Argentina, searching for Columbus’ course plotter, which had a habit of causing people to lose their way.

With Catherine’s propensity to push boundaries and Fredrick chomping at the bit, demanding more independence, was now a good time to be flying off half-way across the world?

“Should I make this journey alone?” Helena proposed reluctantly, but with a sense of having no alternative.

Myka smiled in understanding and squeezed her wife’s knee. “Absolutely not,” she replied. “We’ll do this together or not at all. What’re the time constraints on this do you think, Claude?”

The redhead pursed her lips and thought about it. “I’ve got programmes running, gobbling up any juicy digital data, but I can’t stop word of mouth, so it will get out eventually. I’d give it two weeks,” she guessed.

The couple didn’t need to look at each other to know that they each wanted to take a few days to discuss their views on the issue. Knowing that nothing would be decided that afternoon, they invited Claudia to stay for lunch, happily delaying the forthcoming talk they needed to have with their daughter.

It felt like no time had passed at all before the redhead was saying her goodbyes and bouncing out in to the entrance hall. No sound of the front door moving, but the gentle chime that reflected the caretaker’s arrival-alert told the two regents that they were alone once more.

Hoping to find that Catherine had chosen to sit with her homework a little longer after Christina’s departure, Helena was disappointed but not altogether surprised when she and Myka entered the girl’s room to find sketches and random pieces of papier-mâché covering the work that the sisters had started. She was loathed to admit that her wife was right on this occasion but knew that the brunette would doubtlessly have felt her spiralling thoughts through their bond. To Myka’s credit though, she very rarely bragged over her victories. When it came to the children, the only victory was in raising healthy, happy people.

“Catherine,” Myka began in a firm but non-confrontational tone. “Your mother and I need to have a chat with you.”

The eleven-year-old glanced up from a piece of paper that she was scribbling on, saw matching expressions that never boded well for her, and scowled. “I haven’t done anything,” she protested.

Helena’s brow rose as she picked up discarded pyjamas to make space to sit on the bed. “We have not yet begun to explain our reasons for needing to talk. Is your conscience so burdened that you must immediately fear the worst?”

Catherine pouted. “No, but I really didn’t do anything,” she insisted.

“Sweetheart, you’re not in trouble, but we do need to talk with you about something important.” Myka patted the space at the bottom of the bed and pulled the desk chair close for herself. “Leave that for a minute and come sit with us.”

The pre-teen turned to make sure the lids were on her pens (she hated it when they dried out), successfully hiding the eyes that rolled in her head. “Fine.” She threw herself onto the bed and crossed her legs before finding a spot on the quilt with which to distract herself. “Is this about my homework?” she asked sulkily, only mildly surprising her parents with her insight.

Knowing that this conversation could go one of two ways, Myka considered her approach for a moment and felt for Helena’s approval when she settled on one. “Ok, smartie-pants,” she began in a more playful tone. “If you’re so clever, what do you think we’re going to say next?”

Catherine chewed her lip, glanced over at her desk and then chanced a look at her mothers. She already felt safer since her Mama was making jokes but she could tell they were disappointed and she hated when they made her feel guilty; nine times out of ten, she’d much rather be angry. “That I have to do it myself and only ask for help when I’m stuck?” she weathered a guess.

HG exchanged a look with her wife that indicated her need to dig deeper into this issue. “Darling, if you are already aware of the fact that your choices have been questionable, why have you continued to make them?” she asked as gently as she could manage.

That did it. Catherine felt her throat tighten and her words become barricaded behind the blockage. She set her shoulders, willing her anger to take over, to drown the tears before they could break through. Anger was a mask; a shield; a red mist that made the world less sad. Before she could muster up the requisite emotion though, she felt a dip in the mattress, strong arms pulling her into a warm embrace and quickly found herself flanked by two bodies that broke the dam she’d been holding onto, rocking her rhythmically until all her tears were gone.

Myka continued to sway gently even when only the occasional sniffle remained. She watched her wife’s fingers stroke though dark, coppery waves and swallowed the tears that wanted to gather in her own eyes. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” she finally asked.

The girl’s muffled, high-pitched response burst forth in a torrid of words and both adults had to listen closely to decipher their meaning. “When I do it myself, I don’t get it all right and everyone else already knows what to do and a boy in my class said I must be the dumb one in my family and he’s right ‘cause I’ll never be a genius like you and Chrissi and Freddy and then you’ll be mad and won’t like me anymore!”

Neither adult could stop the tears that gathered as they absorbed their daughter’s woes. HG was the first to find the words to try to help. “My love, genius or not, we love you and always will. You are no more or less important to us than your siblings.”

“But everybody always spends more time with me when we’re doing homework, especially Chrissi. It’s because everyone wants me to be smart, like them,” the eleven-year-old explained as if it should be obvious.

“My love,” Helena repeated more forcefully. She placed a hand under her daughter’s chin and raised hazel eyes to meet her darker ones. “That’s simply not true. How long have you felt this way?” she wondered aloud, horrified by the thought that her baby had been in distress and she’d been unaware.

“Forever,” Catherine muttered petulantly and then, seeing the growing concern on her mother’s face, she added, “Well, since I started school anyway.”

“Cat,” Myka began softly. “Did you not think you could tell us?”

Catherine burrowed further into her American mother but didn’t look at either of her parents as she picked at a butterfly on her duvet and thought back to her first week at school.

_She hadn’t wanted to go to the big building where most children her age received their education. Not at first anyway. When her parents had opened the topic during the penultimate year of her homeschooling, she’d pictured the bus that her brother ran to most morning, and she’d panicked at the thought of having to exist inside a veritably factory of those animals, five days a week._

_She didn’t rub well with many children her own age. Other than her best friend, Jake (who was practically family), there were only one or two neighbourhood kids who she could spend time with and avoid disaster. Well aware that her siblings were far more sociable (yet something else that they excelled at) it had occurred to her that her parents were trying to force people on her. A part of her had even considered the possibility that they’d just had enough of teaching her, but their reassurances had eventually put her at ease._

_Until her first day, however._

_Loud. That was her first and prevailing though. The next was ‘crowded’. Bodies everywhere, mostly other kids but some teachers too. It was easy enough finding her classes, but she quickly lost interest in the delivery, was berated for doodling and then given a stern warning when she forgot to ask when she decided to go to the bathroom._

_And then there were recess and lunch times; a free-for-all of kids rushing to and fro, on a quest to find friends, food and fun. Jake had found her and managed to calm the panic that was building inside, but he had half a dozen other friends tagging along with him and their well-meaning enthusiasm only served to make her more uncomfortable. By the end of the first week, most of them had given up trying to engage her in their games and she found solitude in the library. Ironic really, since it was the one room at home that she mostly avoided because it was too quiet._

_She hadn’t told her parents any of this though. They had been so supportive and hopeful, helping her to understand the changes to come, and sharing tales of Christina and Fredrick’s experiences._

_It had never bothered her much before, when her brother and sister had the answers before her. Mostly because they might whisper things to her so she could take the credit or reassure her that it was ok for her not to know things, that they had struggled with lots at her age. At school though, teachers were always comparing her. Favourites were Chrissi’s wonderful manners or Fredrick’s attention to the finer details of their topics. At school, she was constantly being told that she wasn’t good enough._

_Not in so many words perhaps, but that was how she always felt. How was she supposed to communicate so much to her parents when she couldn’t find the words without feeling the weight of emotions creeping up on her and closing around her throat?_

She shrugged. “I wanted everything to go well so you’d be happy.”

“Your happiness is important too, Catherine,” Myka assured her. “Even more so than ours because it’s your education we’re talking about.”

Wanting to steer away from the subject of emotions for now, the pre-teen asked, “Are you going to tell me to do all my homework on my own now?”

Helena chuckled ruefully. “Straight to the point? There’s no shame in needing and asked for help. We would just like to introduce a few ground rules.” She hadn’t forgotten Catherine’s allusions to more serious, underlying issues, but made a mental note to revisit that later. “Darling, we’ve noticed that you often choose to leave your homework until the last minute...”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is very Catherine centric with some average 'mom stuff', but it felt necessary so I went with it.  
> A peek into something dark and sinister too...

**Chapter Three**

Negotiating Catherine's homework timetable had taken close to an hour. Twice, their conversation became heated when the girl wanted to move a slot to suit her interests and her parents stood firm, but in the end, the finished product was helpfully pinned to the notice-board above the desk and between the three of them, they completed the piece of work that Christina had reluctantly started that morning.

Myka and Helena tried gently to pry more information out of their daughter regarding her school experience to date, but the girl was stubbornly tight-lipped and they eventually had to concede a temporary defeat. Three days had passed since then.

"Hey, Abigail," Myka greeted the person who appeared on her laptop screen. "How are you?"

"I'm good, Myka. Thanks for asking. The weather here really agrees with me," she added and gestured behind her to an open-window view of a cloudless sky. "Is this a social call or...?"

The regent sighed, appearing conflicted. "I wish it was just a social call. It'd be nice to chat and catch up."

"But we both know that life doesn't always work that way," Abigail finished the thought. "You've no need to feel guilty, Myka. I'm here to help if you need me. Are you and Helena ok?" she asked, perhaps wondering why the inventor wasn't involved in this transatlantic call.

"For the most part, we're great," Myka responded with more enthusiasm. "We have our differences but we manage to resolve them. We went all out for her birthday," she added and then flushed at the thought.

Abigail chuckled. "That's good. You've both come such a long way."

"The rings help," the regent elaborated, brushing off the compliment.

"They help, sure. They give you a different perspective besides your own, but don't devalue the efforts you both put into your relationship." She paused with half a smile sat on her lips. "So, what can I help you with?"

Myka slumped slightly. "Catherine is having some issues with school and won't talk to us about whatever is bothering her," she began to explain before describing the scene on Sunday afternoon. "Helena and I have made an appointment to see her form tutor, but after that outburst, we want her to have time to talk to someone about it. The things she said about living up to Chrissi and Freddy... we're worried about her self-esteem." She chewed her lip. "Mainstream education might not be the best thing for Catherine and we'd rather know sooner than later if we need to pick things up at home."

Abigail nodded along and chewed on her friend's concerns. As competent as Myka and Helena were, like many parents, they had a tendency to blow their concerns out of proportion. As a psychiatrist though, she couldn't afford to make any assumptions about the seriousness of her patients' issues. "I think it's important that you don't make any rash decisions at this point. It sounds like you're making a good start: you've let her know that you're concerned but not forcing her to share; you're getting a more rounded view point by talking to the school; and you're seeking advice from a trusted professional. You and Helena have good instincts, Myka."

"I suppose. I'm just aware that as we're trying to decide whether to go after this artefact in Australia, we want to make sure that we've done everything we can to help." She frowned. "Is that really selfish? We should just scrap the whole idea and stay at home; there's no guarantee that this thing is even an artefact, let alone whether it will help us."

"You're weighing up the pros and cons: immediate help vs long-term help. Both are in service to your family's wellbeing, Myka. That could be seen as selfish and altruistic all at once." The psychiatrist paused and considered the thought that the youngest Wells-Bering was not the only one who struggled with their self-image. "You're one of the least selfish people I know."

The regent shrugged but some of her concern did fade. "Shall we set up a video session then?"

"Actually, my parents have been bugging me to visit and I do need to follow up with a few people near you, so why don't you invite me round for dinner on Friday and it'll give me an opportunity to speak with Cat before the weekend?" She knew that her suggestion would spark her friend's insecurities so she pre-empted any protest from the regent before Myka could even think to open her mouth. "It's not an imposition! Things have slowed down for me a lot here and if I don't see my parents at least once before Christmas, I'll be disowned. You're my friends too and you know we're all invested in looking after your brood. Just as long as you don't mind feeding me when I arrive on Friday. Though I could always pick something up on my way over?" she added, hoping to knock her friend off the idea that she was being a nuisance.

Myka smiled appreciatively. "I'll do you one better; I'll have the guest room set up and make you breakfast too. Oh, and let me know what time you need picking up from the airport."

Ms Cho opened her mouth to protest and then swiftly closed it. If running around after her would allow Myka to feel better, she'd bear it. "That sounds lovely, Myka."

They exchanged a few more pleasantries and stories about recent misadventures before Abigail announced that she needed to get ready for an appointment and ended the call. Myka turned the laptop off, closed the lid and made her way to the basement where her wife was working. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused to smile fondly at the junior workstation where she and Helena had conducted many of their children's science lessons. Microscopes, beakers, Petri dishes and all manner of other paraphernalia sat on shelves, waiting for the next mad experiment. On the giant white-board to the right, there was still a diagram of a carbon molecule with its elements labelled, and to the left, a wall of photographs depicting the children working on each project.

As she let her gaze wander over the happy faces, her conversation with Abigail came flooding back to her. The idea of pulling Catherine out of school had sprung so quickly to her mind. Did she really believe that it was the best option for her daughter or was she actually just nostalgic for the years that had already passed them by? Her thoughts were conflicted. On the one hand, she knew that Catherine was at a turning point in her life where she was growing out of her childhood, but at the same time, she was still so young and inexperienced.

Was this issue with school just a teething problem or a sign that her youngest needed a programme more carefully tailored to her needs? Since she and Helena were in a position to offer an alternative to the conventional approach, should they not leap at the opportunity?

"Patience," she chided herself in a whisper.  _There's time to work things through without making rash decisions,_ she thought, recalling her friend's caution and the near argument she'd had with Helena just a couple of days ago.

Leaving the small schoolroom, Myka rounded a partition wall and found two attractive legs sticking out from beneath a contraption that looked like a cross between a bus-shelter and a roller-coaster car. The inventor must have heard the other regent's approach because the moment Myka stopped, a hand reached out and a voice called to her.

"Darling, would you mind handing the wire cutters to me, please?"

The brunette acquiesced before finding a stool so she could sit and watch. "You don't need a sonic-screwdriver for that thing?" she teased.

"I am not building a TARDIS," HG's muffled and strained voice drifted once again from under the machinery, and then added, "Would that I could."

"How about finishing all of your current projects first?" Myka suggested wryly. "Hasn't Claudia persuaded you to patent any of these yet?" she wondered aloud as she glanced around at the organised chaos that was H. G. Wells-Bering's workshop/laboratory. "You're going to need another room before long."

"Nonsense, darling; I still have a whole shelf that's essentially empty. I have only to remove those old magazines." The inventor continued to tinker, her voice occasionally straining with the effort of concentration and applied force.

Myka bit her lip and had to remind herself several times that she had sought her wife to discuss the serious issue of Catherine's wellbeing, not to while away the afternoon 'studying anatomy'. "You mean the National Geographic and New Scientist collections that I wanted to recycle last year?"

"Yes, those. I'll box them up and put them in the loft if I need the space," Helena added casually, deliberately ignoring the huff that fell from her wife's mouth. She finished what she was doing under her invention, paused for a minute to admire her handiwork and then rolled out and sat up to smile at her spectator. "You never know when one of the kids might need them for research."

"I suppose," Myka allowed, consoling herself with the knowledge that her spouse could have much worse compulsions that wanting to hoard a few dozen magazines. Though she wouldn't need to do so herself, some of the articles  _were_  worth a second read. "Speaking of our young ones, Abigail is going to visit for a few days and is hoping to have time with Catherine after dinner on Friday."

Helena reached for a cloth to wipe some of the grease off her hands and pulled out a stool to perch next to the brunette. She automatically reached over to push her fingers between her wife's and squeezed in comfort. "I had hoped that she would choose to make the journey. Although Claudia's network is useful, it's not personal enough for these situations. Catherine is unlikely to sit still long enough to allow Abigail to work her magic either."

Myka conceded the comments and kicked herself for having worried so much about inconveniencing her friend when her daughter's wellbeing was the bigger priority. She knew the compulsion was a throwback from her upbringing and still marvelled at the hold her parents' lessons had on her. "I'll pick her up from the airport on Friday, once I know what time she's due in, and bring her straight home. What shall we say to Cat? Should we warn her, or suggest that Abigail will be happy to chat with her if she wants? You know how she is if she thinks we're manipulating her."

HG sucked in a long breath and released it slowly. "If we're not open with her and it backfires, we're going to lose any chance of her opening up in the near future. I suppose we could invite Christina too and make it a family affair?"

The brunette smiles and added, "Abigail did mention needing to see Thomas too."

Helena rolled her eyes but smiled as she stood up and kicked her stood under the bench. "Yes, yes, the boy can come too."

Myka sniggered as she followed suit and swept a hand teasingly across her wife's lower back. "We need to get to know him better. Who knows how long it'll be before they turn us into grandparents?"

The inventor paused at the bottom of the basement stairs and turned back to glare at the mischievous brunette. She tried to appear stern, but she wasn't feeling it. No matter how disturbed she felt when she considered the couple's tentative romantic beginnings, she knew that (at least of Thomas' behalf) that most prurient interest had not appeared for a long time into the teens' renewed friendship. Christina's obvious crush on the young man had been worrying for HG, who knew (even if she could no longer remember) that her own sexual awakening had begun in a similar way. No matter how illogical, to her, Thomas became the enemy, and disliking him on principal came naturally.

She knew deep down that Christina and Thomas were in love and committed to making their relationship work. The idea that the young man might eventually be father to her grandchildren hit her in an unexpectedly pleasant way. Even if she hadn't openly admitted it, she did like him and saw enough of his good nature to feel confident in his abilities as a dad and a life partner.

She really did need to stop being so outwardly hostile.

Knowing that Myka would have felt an echo of her battle, Helena didn't bother to voice any of this inner monologue. She allowed a smile to tease the corner of her mouth and simply said, "I'm not yet old enough to be a grandmother."

"Says one of the oldest people I know," Myka retorted and quickly dodged an attempt by the Brit to pinch one of her ticklish spots. On the second attempt, she caught her wife's wrist and pulled Helena in closer so she could wrap her arms around a slender waist. "That's the future we're fighting for," she explained unnecessarily.

Feeling and seeing the hope rising from her partner, HG nodded. So much of their time together had included this subconscious awareness of a future overshadowed by destiny. So much so, that survival, protection and preparation had been everyday fixtures. Somehow, they'd managed to build a home, raise a family and maintain a somewhat normal existence in all that time, and even enjoy life without losing hope, but they both wondered what life would be like once the dangers were passed. Something told Helena that, even if they all survived, she and Myka would never be able to simply relax and take existence at a leisurely pace; they were both wound too tight.

Reverently, she brushed a lock of hair behind Myka's ear and took a moment to share her undying appreciation of her wife's strength, love and support. She watched a crooked smile pull lips up at the corners and immediately gave into the urge to capture them with her own. Helena's fingers tangled in greying curls and she melted into the embrace, feeling a temporary relief of all of her concerns.

As they eventually parted and savoured the moment by resting foreheads against each other, HG returned her thoughts to her wife's last words and she whispered her next with desperate determination, "We will give them that future, Myka. Together, we will."

* * * * *

The large country house in Vermont was an attractive sight; set far back from the road, surrounded by trees of orange, purple and yellowing-green, it looked warm and inviting. Inside, half a dozen men and women relaxed in expensive leather chairs and each quaffed their spirit of choice from a crystal glass, none appearing to have a care in the world. In fact, all wearing expressions of pride and no small amount of smugness. They were celebrating their success. Albeit, prematurely.

They were so sure that their leader would be pleased with their initiative. Mr Spenser-Chapman Jr had been patient long enough and as his most loyal supporters, they felt certain that they deserved their much-anticipated accolades. Speculating over their impending victory was the theme of the evening and self-assurance flew high.

"When they discover his mangled corpse, they'll either be enraged or inconsolable," a plump woman in an overly-bright green skirt-suit commented from behind her glass of cognac. A murmur of agreement swept the room and caught a stick figure immediately to her right.

"Giving Chapman the perfect opportunity to strike," came the reply, slurred from the smirking red lips of an attractive young blonde.

A phlegmy cough drew attentions to a rotund gent with a prominent rosy nose, who sloshed spots of amber liquid from his own drink as he wholeheartedly agreed. "Filthy abominations," he too slurred. "He'll have to be grateful when we rid him of one of those brats." He coughed again, loudly, and reached for a silk handkerchief to wipe flecks of spittle from the corners of his mouth. "The entire family is a disgusting combination of degradation and immorality. The sooner that Chapman is in a position to take charge and rid the world of their ilk, the better!"

Several 'hear, hears' and other exclamations of approval rose up in response to the gent's pompous address and each of them drank heartily.

"Let's hope that Hugh doesn't screw this up," someone added in an amused grumble that pitched the optimistic atmosphere into a heavy silence.

"Nonsense!" Mr Pompous replied forcefully. "He's in place and ready to strike when the iron's hot. There's no stopping him now," he added with confidence.

A confidence that lasted all of sixty seconds.

Heads turned to the sound of tyres crunching on gravel and then several car doors closing in quick succession. The man who'd doubted Hugh's abilities, who happened to have had the least to drink, sensed danger and scrambled from his chair to leap for the kitchen and back entrance. Too late though, he realised as enlarged shadows filled the windowpane and something heavy impacted against the door frame, buckling the old lock. He returned swiftly to the living room, where his companions were surrounded by what appeared to be a small military force, all dressed in black with masks hiding their identities.

"What in God's name do you think you're doing!?" the rosy nosed gent spluttered from his seat. "This is private property. How dare you!" He was full of indignant anger, believing that he was above reproach, until the figure closest to him removed their mask and nearly made him swallow his tongue. "You? B... but we work for him. We're in his service. We're helping to remove his enemies!" His voice grew increasingly desperate as he stared up at the impassable features of their leader's most ruthless henchwoman.

The face of a roman goddess drew closer to the now cowering man, her features of flawless marble but for a prominent scar that ran diagonally across her face from temple to jaw. The inviting warm brown of her eyes did nothing to tame the icy soul behind them or comfort her captives, and by the smirk on her pretty mouth, she knew it.

"You do not speak for our master. That you claim to know his mind is an arrogance that you will suffer for," she stated matter-of-factly. "You will call off your operation and submit to judgement."

Wild panic filled the six revellers. The man who'd tried to run sank into the shadows a little more while the woman in green whimpered and stuttered every excuse that came to mind. "The boy means nothing to him. We were only trying to weaken his enemies. Surely he will see that we were acting on his behalf; in his best..."

The blind raising of an arm, a loud retort, and shocked screams punctuated her dying words as a bullet found a path through her skull and embedded itself into the wall. Cold eyes didn't waver from their sweating target as the leader of this militia repeated her instructions.

Trembling uncontrollably as the barrel of the gun turned to fix on him, the once pompous gent closed his eyes and swallowed the fire in his throat. "We can't. Hugh's gone dark. He won't contact anyone until the job is finished and we have no way to contact him." For several seconds, he had no idea what was going on around him because he still refused to open his eyes, but someone must have signalled an order since strong arms forced him to his feet. On reflex, he looked, stumbling over his own steps as his escorts guided him towards the front door. He barely had time to glance at his friend's body before the chill autumn air hit his face. As he was shoved into the back of a car and somehow managed to right himself, he found those same cold eyes grinning back at him through the rear-view mirror.

"I wouldn't pity your friend too much," the goddess told him calmly. "Compared to what you will face, her fate was merciful." She watched the shudder that ran the length of his body and smiled triumphantly.

"Commander Bruttius?" the driver spoke quietly, waiting for her explicit instruction to leave.

"Andiamo," she replied and fixed her mind on their destination, anticipation running hot through her body as she wondered what her master had in store for these worthless followers.

* * * * *

Walking the corridors of a high school always invoked mixed feelings in Myka Wells-Bering. On the one hand, it was a centre for learning and she had excelled in almost all of her classes, but on the other hand, she'd been a social outcast and between lessons she'd been a target in a never-ending popularity war. As she passed a bank of lockers and recalled a vividly harrowing encounter with a pushy group of cheerleaders, she felt a hand slip into her own and welcomed the reminder that she was no longer that vulnerable teen. Of course, that also renewed her concerns over Catherine's current dilemma.

"I hope her tutor can give us some answers," she fretted aloud as she and her wife turned into the last corridor and found Mrs Gottfried's classroom. She knocked sharply and squeezed Helena's hand before releasing it; she wanted to present a united front without appearing too soft.

The teacher called them in and they each shook her offered hand before taking their seats. "How can I help you today?" she asked cordially.

Helena sat primly in her plastic chair, exuding an air of authority that she often used to put others on the back foot. She smiled, but the expression didn't fully reach her eyes. "You should already be aware that our daughter, Catherine, has recently joined mainstream education," she began, first wanting to make sure that this woman understood the eleven-year-old's background.

"Yes, of course. Many of our students join us after being home-schooled," the teacher answered, somewhat defensively. "Your eldest two did the same as I recall?"

The inventor nodded, glad that they were all on the same page. "Yes. They both found the transition challenging but, for the most part, they enjoyed coming to school."

"Are you worried that Catherine isn't enjoying school?" the teacher asked, hoping that she was reading the situation correctly.

"Mrs Gottfried," Myka began, pulling the woman's attention to herself. "Would you mind giving us your honest assessment of Catherine's progress so far? We have reason to believe that she's struggling with something but she doesn't give much away and we want to make sure that we've done everything in our power to help her."

The teacher appeared simultaneously relieved and concerned as she took a moment to gather her thoughts. "Well, she's quiet in class but not what I'd call  _attentive_ ," she began, almost apologetically. "She has a tendency to disregard the rules, but more often than not, I believe that is simply because she forgets that they're there."

"Does that get her into trouble?" Myka wondered aloud.

"Sometimes, but not always. We try to be firm but fair with the new starters. We are reaching a point where we would expect all of our students to have adapted though."

Reading between the lines, the couple understood that their daughter was not yet there. "Cat's quite practical when it comes to rules," Myka began again. "If she understands why a rule exists and concedes that it's necessary, then she'll likely follow it."

"We can work with that," Mrs Gottfried agreed immediately. "As for her learning... well, her lack of attention in the classroom is beginning to make her fall behind I'm afraid. Something that I'd planned on discussing with you at the parent/teacher conference next month," she added hastily.

"How do you know?" HG asked before the teacher could begin to elaborate.

Taken aback, Mrs Gottfried stammered, "I... I'm sorry?"

Helena used her wife's calmness as an anchor as she kept her own impatience under control. "How do you know that she's falling behind?" Feeling something akin to a reprimand, an echo for her condescending tone, she tried to explain herself more gently, "How are you assessing her understanding?"

"Well, I take note of the students' participation in class of course, and we also have regular pop-quizzes." She paused to fumble around her desk for a minute before reaching into a drawer and pulling out a stack of papers. "Catherine hasn't managed to get one answer right yet, though I'm been trying to drop hints during lessons when I know which questions will be coming up." She found the correct sheet and held it out over the surface dividing her from the concerned parents. A very clear 'zero' was written in the top right-hand corner.

HG plucked the paper from the educator's hand, scanned the questions, found them all to be fairly simple and perfectly accessible to her youngest, and then finally scanned the answers. What she read made her want to laugh aloud but she somehow managed to curtail the urge. At her wife's curious expression, she passed the paper over and turned back to the woman opposite. "May we borrow this?" she asked, giving nothing away. Inside she felt Myka's amused, confused and exasperated response to their daughter's cleverly disguised answers.

"Erm, yes I suppose. I generally keep hold of them until the first parent/teacher conference, but as that's not far away, it's fine."

Myka folded the paper neatly in half before returning her attention to Mrs Gottfried. "Christina and Fredrick have a lot in common. Mostly, they happily conform to the world around them. Catherine is not like that, but by no means do we want her to think that she is somehow lesser because of this."

"Of course not," the teacher agreed readily. "We want to encourage our students to value and celebrate their individuality."

"Yet, by the very nature of public education, conformity is expected," HG noted.

"Well... yes..."

"When you and your colleagues are pushed to enforce your rules, do you or they ever compare pupils to older or younger siblings?" the inventor continued. "I ask because recently she seems convinced that she is incapable of achieving the goals that Christina and Fredrick have. That is not the girl we knew before she began attending your school..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;-D


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed the last chapter. Here's another one for you.

** Chapter Four **

Sunlight danced across the lake, partially obscuring the spectator’s view of the figures in the water. She shifted on her bench, moving position so that a nearby tree could cast a shadow across her face. The taller figure dipped beneath the surface of the water for a second before taking off across the buoyed course in a fluidly controlled front crawl, his movements exaggerated as he demonstrated a technique to his young pupil.

Christina watched him, appreciating his athletic form as it cut though the water. She couldn’t wait until they were back on campus and she could get him alone. The thought made her chuckle to herself and an impression of a memory took her briefly back to the face of a seven-year-old boy. The memory struggled through the barriers that the artefact – the scarab – had placed in her mind, but it was there and the more she focussed on it, the clearer it became.

Remembering their time together in Limbo was like looking into memories from another lifetime; they were fuzzy and incomplete, disjointed and laced with a persistent feeling of having made repeated introductions – never having recalled the day before. A past life that could easily have been a dream.

_This isn’t a dream though,_ she thought as she returned to the scene around her. Spending Saturday mornings at the lake, watching her boyfriend as he trained for his own goals or coached her brother, this was reality, and these tranquil mornings were quickly becoming routine. They provided a sense of normalcy that a Victorian in the twenty-first century desperately needed. Yet, behind the normalcy lay the knowledge that every skill learned might save their lives one day. Not just because life was unpredictable, but because conflict was an inevitable destination for them and there was no way of knowing for sure just what that would consist of.

Nothing so far had stopped her from enjoying her life though – not being trapped in an artefact, not time travel and not being bronzed – and since she and Thomas had rekindled their relationship, prospects seemed much brighter. Being in love and having that feeling returned made optimism much easier. And since he’d stopped trying to protect her from everything, they were more relaxed.

Her boyfriend finished his lap and gestured to Fredrick, letting him start his practise. Thomas swam towards the dock, grabbed the ladder and began to climb. Christina held her breath, eyes fixed on her boyfriend as he emerged from the water. One huge benefit of needing to be combat ready: the twenty-seven year old had an impressive physique. _If only the weather was warmer,_ she thought, imagining him without his wetsuit.

“Form fitting attire had its own appeal though,” she muttered to herself.

She felt blue eyes gazing at her across the curve of the water’s edge and answered a smirk with a suggestive smile before turning away; the last thing she wanted to do was distract him from keeping watch over Freddy. Letting HG’s precious prince injure himself while unsupervised would be just the excuse the Brit was looking for to hate Thomas permanently.

Deciding that her brother was the distraction that her libido needed, Christina strolled along the pier and watched Fredrick as he powered around a marker and began to return to the shallows.

“He’s picking it up,” Thomas commented as he came to stand next to his girlfriend. “I knew he would, but I didn’t think he’d get there so quickly.”

“He’s a Wells-Bering, what else did you expect?” Christina replied with her tongue planted firmly in her cheek. “Though perhaps he just had an exceptional teacher,” she added with a sideways glance.

Thomas stretched to his full height, chest puffed out deliberately and drawing a giggle from the young woman. “Definitely the latter.”  Christina rolled her eyes, opened her mouth to retaliate, and was interrupted by her ringing phone. With a wink, he stepped to the edge of the pier and knelt to talk to Fredrick. Nearby, the sound of tyres crunching gravel broke the gentle lapping of the water against the bank.

“Good effort, Freddy!” Thomas congratulated the boy in the water. “You’re gonna crush them next week. How about some timed laps now?”

“Sure! Best of five?” the teen asked as he continued to tread water. Spotting his parents approaching, he waved energetically, grinning when they immediately waved back. “I’m gonna do another practise lap first,” he announced, glanced back at Myka and HG, turned and cut back through the water. He always appreciated the occasions when they came out to the lake’ without his peers around to watch, it was much less embarrassing.

Myka pushed her wife gently towards the dock as she broke away and made a bee-line towards their eldest. With Catherine agreeing at last to share with someone, they had left her with Abigail, hopeful that they could go home to a few answers. It took a lot for them to leave the house, knowing that Cat wasn’t in a good place, but life moved on and they had other children who deserved their attention too.

Christina was on the phone, deep in conversation, as Myka approached the young woman. From the sporadic giggling and eye-rolling, she guessed that Adelaide was on the other end of the call, and as she got within hearing distance, she caught part of the conversation.

“... believe he’s two already,” Christina gushed. “You know I’m going to spoil him rotten when I drive up next month, right?” She clocked the regent’s approach and chuckled. “My Ma’s nodding at me. I might need Thomas to drive his car too; I’m not sure there’ll be enough room in mine for him _and_ presents.”

_“You just wait, Chrissi,”_ Adelaide’s muffled voice grumbled through the speaker _. “When you have kids, I’m gonna fill your house with useless, noisy crap. I might just give you all of Darwin’s old toys. Most of them you bought, so it’d serve you right.”_

“That sounds an awful lot like a gauntlet being thrown,” the Victorian teased.

“You’re a glutton for punishment,” Myka smiled at the confident expression on her daughter’s face. “Aren’t you forgetting who _your_ children’s grandparents will be?” She chuckled, watching the smugness fade from Christina’s face. “I’m thinking mostly of your other mother, of course.”

At the water’s edge, HG approached a cautious looking Thomas and stood imposingly next to him. She chewed the inside of her cheek slightly, trying to suppress the smirk that wanted to appear; she was enjoying his discomfort far too much. Honestly, she had grown to like him some time ago, but having power over him had given her a sense of still having control over Christina’s life. Something that she had lost so long ago, to devastating consequences. Myka was right though; it was past time to nip it in the bud; he’d earned the right to be treated like family.

“It’s wonderful to see him enjoying this so much,” Helena eventually said, breaking through the tense silence. “He’s always had an affinity for the water, but you’ve given him a passion for it. That’s priceless. Thank you.”

Blue eyes blinked in astonishment. “Erm, you’re welcome,” the young man stammered. “He’s a great kid though, so it’s really no effort.”

HG glanced sideways, nodding with respect at his modesty. “Nevertheless, your influence on him is marked. You’re a positive role model for him and you should know that we appreciate that... As does Christina.”

Thomas nodded and his posture relaxed slightly. He focussed his attention more on the teen in the water and recorded the new lap time as Freddy touched the dock, grinned up at them and flipped effortlessly back into his stroke. “She’s so protective of him. And Cat,” he began. “When I started coaching him, she had a list of rules a mile long.” He smiled as the inventor chuckled. “I love her,” he said softly. There was a pause as they both considered this confession. “Freddy’s become like a brother to me and though I don’t spend much time with her, I care about Cat too. I get why you’ve been so hard on me. She wasn’t much more than a kid when I came back into your lives. But _you_ should know that they’re like family to me and, regardless of training, I would lay down my life for them.”

A mixture of shame and pride ran the length of the regent’s body; realisation that she hadn’t given him nearly enough credit hit her hard. She nodded her understanding and turned to offer him her undivided attention. “I’ll spare you any warnings of consequences should you hurt them. It goes without saying I think. Thomas, so long as you care for them, you _are_ family.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed slightly. Impossible as the task might seem, it was time to let go of her ‘little girl’ and accept the reality that she was a woman and needed to be treated as such in all aspects of her life. Deciding to change the subject, she looked back at her son. “So, how is his progress?”

* * * * *

Abigail checked the placement of her feet as she climbed the rope ladder through the floor of the tree-house, into its belly. She found a solid hold for a hand just inside the opening and dragged herself through.

“You may have the purple chair,” Catherine declared with authority from across the room. She dragged a bean-bag and two blankets from a storage locker, threw one at the counsellor and then began to make herself comfortable. Once settled, she fixed Abigail with a hard stare and said, “I’m not dumb.”

The dark-haired visitor smiled and returned the gaze evenly. “I know that. I think you’re very clever, Catherine. More importantly, do you think you are?”

“Of course I do!” came the immediate reply.

Abigail’s eyebrows rose slowly. She took particular note of bright eyes that couldn’t meet her own and limbs that fidgeted unconsciously. She had learned to take her clues from body language more than words when it came to the youngest Wells-Bering. One day, she could be an open book, willing to share every last thought or feeling; another day, she was an enigma, going to great lengths to distract them both with subterfuge and misdirection.

The therapist was not yet sure which kind of day this would be.

“Your mothers are worried about you,” she told the girl bluntly. “They want to help... Last night, you said you wanted to tell me about school. Is that still the case?”

Catherine appeared to think about it, her teeth capturing a lip to chew on it. That hot feeling  had appeared in her stomach again – the one that made the backs of her eyes sting with tears and pulled the muscles in her throat tight. She looked down at her lap and clenched her teeth together. Eventually, she nodded; she wanted someone to help and from experience, she knew that Abigail would understand her even if she couldn’t get the words out.

An hour passed before they finally came to the reason for their meeting. After breathing exercises, games of laughing loudest and longest, and reciting tongue twisters against the clock, the pair lay on a pile of cushions and bean-bags, staring at the ceiling.

“Teachers don’t like me,” Catherine blurted unexpectedly after a few quiet moments.

Abigail made a non-committal noise but otherwise stayed quiet, giving the youngster space to voice her thoughts.

“I don’t like them either,” she added with a healthy dose of resentment in her tone. “They’re boring and they don’t know everything.”

The counsellor smiled to herself and couldn’t help shooting a sideways glance at the girl. “Are they supposed to know everything?”

“They’re teachers,” the girl replied, as if that answered the question. “Mummy and Mama know lots more and they’re not teachers.”

The visitor conceded the point. It was logical she supposed. If a teacher knew less than a parent, what point was there in listening to them? She thought back to the girl’s pop-quiz answers. Were they an act of defiance, a way to get attention, or a devious way of testing the abilities of her new educators? The fact that Myka and Helena had seen the amusing anagrams for what they were must only have concreted the idea that her teachers were not worth her time. She suspected that this lack of confidence in the school was the tip of an ice-berg of unsatisfactory circumstances for the eleven-year-old. It wasn’t her job to change those circumstances but to help Catherine understand them, her feelings and her options.

She decided to push for a bit more information. “What _do_ you like about school, Cat?”

The girl thought long and hard. Her immediate and emotional response was ‘nothing’, but it wasn’t entirely true. “I like the library,” she confessed eventually. “They let you play on the computers in there. With headphones on, I can pretend I’m not there. And I like the librarian; he lets me push the trolley.” She hesitated, felt her pulse quicken slightly and then added, “And I like Andi.”

Abigail’s face contorted oddly as she tried to control her response. It definitely wasn’t too early for Catherine to start having _those_ kinds of feelings but she didn’t want to jump to conclusions. She shot the girl a knowing look. “You don’t go in the library to read then?”

Cat smiled and shook her head. “They don’t make me read the books.”

“You don’t like books?” the shrink wondered aloud. She’d always had the impression that the youngest was just as book-crazy as the rest of her family, but perhaps that was just another example of her trying to fit into her surroundings.

A shrug lifted small shoulders. “They’re ok. I can find more on the Internet though.”

“Does Andy prefer the Internet too?” Abigail followed up casually.

“Yeah. She’s amazing with computers. She knows all the best sites,” the girl gushed before she abruptly realised what she was saying.

Abigail smiled, stored the information that _Andi_ was a girl and nodded, like she’d gleaned nothing important. “It sounds like you’ve made a friend. That must be a relief for you. I expect you’ve tried to mix with Jake’s friends.”

“They’re stupid too,” Catherine mumbled and began pulling at the fibres on her blanket.

The shrink considered her options for a moment and nodded again, slowly. This time mostly to herself. “I think we should explore that thought further,” she finally decided and rearranged her position so that she could sit up and cross her legs.

“Why?” Cat asked defiantly.

“I think it’s important that you understand why you think these things.”

* * * * *

He stood with the sun to his back, low branches of surrounding trees and bushes obscuring his figure from the family across the lake. While a deep hatred filled him at the sight of the couple arriving, he fought down his reaction and focussed on the boy in the water - the prince among their repugnant offspring.

His task was certain now. With all contact cut off from his comrades, he was determined to kill, before (most likely) being killed. The boy’s death would weaken their enemies. They were all of the same opinion: that their leader would rejoice in their initiative and dedication to the cause.

His finger twitched towards the gun at his side. He’d been shooting all of his life. Since his father and grandfather had given him his first BB-gun and let him have free rein in their self-built range, he’d wanted to do nothing else but put a real bullet in the faces of those pictured on his targets; the country’s enemies; God’s enemies. He took a deliberate breath and then another, clearing his mind of the anticipation that filled him and pushed for the kill. Now was not the time. The boy would die. He needed maximum opportunity and impact so he had to wait until the parents were out of the way, until the boy was vulnerable.

It was fortunate that the cosy brood knew so little of their familial bond. No doubt they had and were making plans for their future protection, but had they been aware of the other attempts on their lives over the years, they’d know that their proximity to their offspring was the best shield the little demons had. Mr Chapman was already on his way to Australia to find whatever had landed there. He was sure that Wells and Bering would follow the same call and, once they did, the shield would weaken. All he needed was one shot.

One.

Shot.

* * * * *

Freddy leapt out of the car as it pulled into the driveway and his Ma killed the engine. His rucksack followed his momentum and attached itself to his back as he flew through the front door and up the stairs to his bedroom. Just before the portal to his sanctuary closed behind him, he caught the words ‘lunch’ and ‘one o’clock’ and yelled back something that vaguely resembled acknowledgement.

Downstairs, Myka grumbled under breath and shook her head before heading to the kitchen. “Thank you, Ma,” came a practised impression of the teen. “I really appreciate the fact that you think about feeding me. Especially after I’ve spent most of the morning in a lake. What would I do without you?” She began to open cupboards and pull things out. Her voice changed tone as she answered herself, her head bobbing back and forth with sarcastic vigour. “You’re welcome, Freddy. It’s a pleasure to cook for such a polite and considerate young gentleman.” A light chuckle came from behind her and she turned a raised brow on the culprit. “Not a word,” she warned, though her expression lightened slightly.

“I’m as guilty as you are for spoiling him, but perhaps it’s time to leave him to his own devices. Perhaps making his own lunch on occasion would wake the prince charming in him.” Helena suggested as she moved into step beside her wife and followed the familiar steps of this particular dance.

Myka hummed in response and reached around the inventor to grab something from the spice rack. “If we do that, he’ll end up eating peanut butter and chocolate spread from the jar.”

“It wouldn’t kill him,” HG noted though she too found the idea distasteful. “I wonder if I could find a remedy for ‘teenager’.”

This made the brunette chuckle and, after glancing briefly to her left, she followed a sudden urge to feed the Brit a slice of cucumber from the pile she was chopping.

“Mmm, salty,” Helena murmured appreciatively.

A frown pulled Myka’s expression taught. “I haven’t even put the seasoning on it yet.” She looked up in time to catch a wink and blushed. _How does she still manage to catch me off guard like that?_ “Behave,” she growled through a pleased smirk.

They worked in companionable silence for a while and soon had the table set for lunch. Myka called up the stairs while Helena popped out into the garden to find Catherine and Abigail. Both parents were relieved to see a smile on their daughter’s face as she helped herself to food and immediately wolfed it down. There were not many feelings worse that being unable to help a child in distress. Particularly your own precious offspring.

As Myka fell into conversation with the counsellor and Catherine, Helena observed her son. While their mealtimes were much more relaxed than she had experienced during her own childhood, or indeed more so than Christina had, she and Myka still expected their children to use their manners at the table. Consideration for others was apparently not a natural part of being a teenager though. If necessary, she would remind Freddy of this fact until he felt like pulling his hair out.

“Are you enjoying your lunch, love?” she asked just as he swallowed the mouthful he was chewing.

Freddy paused with another fork-full already halfway to his mouth. “Erm, yeah?” he answered, his tone suspicious.

“You sound unsure.”

He brought the fork to his mouth and chewed more slowly, giving himself time to think. “Ma always makes something I like.”

HG nodded. “One might assume then, that in enjoying a meal provided by the person who worked hard to bring you into the world, you might remember more often to display a modicum of gratitude.” She continued to gaze unerringly at the teen, an eyebrow raised in question, as she waited for the penny to drop.

Freddy’s shoulders slumped and his fork sank towards his plate. He glanced briefly over at Myka and abruptly wished that he _had_ stopped to thank her when she called him down to lunch. His thoughts had still been on his morning swim and on the competition coming up. More than anything though, he’d been wondering which of the girls from school would show up and if he’d get a chance to show Holly Brown what he was capable of.

“Sorry, Mum,” he responded quietly. “I’ll remember in future,” he promised and offered the inventor a lop-sided smile before shovelling more food into his mouth.

Helena sipped her tea and smiled around the rim of her cup. “I’ll hold you to that.” With her right hand, she reached over to straighten the collar of his rugby shirt and pinched a hamster-puffed cheek, eliciting an adorable attempt at a glare.

Evening settled quickly on the family, the darker nights encouraging even Catherine to head inside early. HG walked on soft soles across the landing, hearing gentle murmurs from her son’s room as Myka chatted to him. She grinned to herself, already anticipating the goofy expression on her wife’s face. Across the hall, she entered the eleven-year-old’s room and found her daughter kneeling on a chair, focussed intently over the desk.

“Are you ready for bed, my love?”

“Mm-hm,” the girl answered distractedly as the pencil in her hand scratched frantically across a square of paper. “I just need to finish this.”

Helena moved closer and gazed over Cat’s shoulder to find a detailed sketch of a scooter with a tandem attachment added to the basic design. “Is this a new project?”

“Yep. It’s for a friend,” the pre-teen said in the same faraway tone. She missed the surprised expression on her mother’s face, unaware that she’d shared something that she’d held close to her chest for weeks. Spending the afternoon unburdening herself to Abigail had made her mind and tongue loose.

HG waited to see if anything else would unintentionally reveal itself but nothing did. It was clear from Catherine’s posture and focus that she was more her usual self than the loaded gun she had gradually become though. With relief, she placed a kiss on the girl’s crown and retreated to the door. “Lights need to be out in ten minutes, Catherine. Understand?”

“Yes, Mum,” came the practised reply before an unoccupied hand reached out to turn over a coloured sand timer. “Ten minutes.”

“Goodnight then. Sweet dreams.” HG smiled at the habitual ‘love you’ that followed her out of the room. She left the door open, knowing that Myka would go in next to offer to read and briefly wondered what they would do when their youngest eventually decided that she was too old for bed-time stories. She quickly dismissed the thought. Dwelling on such things would not prevent their occurrence; she knew that she would do better to just enjoy the moments that they still had.

Myka was already on her way out of Freddy’s room as she arrived and, as anticipated, a satisfied grin tugged at the brunette’s lips. Helena stole a kiss as they passed and paused in the teen’s doorway. They shared a short look of understanding but didn’t revisit the subject of neglected gratitude. “Should I set up the scrabble board tonight, or are you otherwise occupied?”

Fredrick appeared momentarily conflicted. Scrabble, or something similar, was their regular evening diversion and he did enjoy it, but lately, he just wanted to spend time in his room, by himself. “Erm, I thought I might just go to bed actually,” he fake-yawned and then immediately winced at the expression of incredulity that came over his mother’s face.

“It’s almost eight o’clock,” she reminded him and continued to eye him with suspicion for several seconds. As his neck and face became increasingly flushed, she relented and walked further into the room so she could pull out a chair and perch close by. “Love, it’s ok if you want to have time to yourself in your room. You don’t have to make excuses. Your mother and I understand that privacy and ‘alone time’ are important at your age.” She watched him squirm and turn a darker shade of red, if that was at all possible, but continued on regardless. “Just as long as you understand that there are still boundaries and that any eh-hm ‘entertainment materials’ should be carefully and thoughtfully selected. We don’t want to have to take away your privileges.”

Now completely mortified, Freddy just wanted to end the conversation and get rid of his mother as quickly as possible. “Ok, Mum.” He held his breath, hoping that she would leave and not ask him any questions.

Sensing that her close proximity was not helping, HG moved to the door. “I know that you probably won’t want to talk to your mothers about the changes that you’re feeling, Fredrick, but we’re here if you need us. If you feel more comfortable, talk to Thomas, Steve, Jason or even Pete.” She saw reluctance on his face and sighed. “Just promise me that you won’t rely entirely on your friends or the Internet.” He nodded and mumbled something that sounded like agreement. “Ok. Goodnight then, love.”

“Night, Mum.”

Downstairs, Helena joined her wife in the living room and gratefully accepted a cup of tea. “Just what I needed. Thank you, darling.”

“Everything ok? Where’s Freddy?” Myka wondered as she made herself comfortable. HG explained and Myka took a deep breath. “It had to happen eventually.” She thought back to the moment she’d first held him in her arms and recalled the overwhelming feeling of astonishment. He was so tiny and so completely dependent on her, and now... “Where has the time gone?”

* * * * *

**Deep in the Schwarzwald, Germany**

The cabin was rustic, sprawling and surrounded by a dense wall of trees. Hidden in the branches and in a hut on the roof, guards watched vigilantly for any sign of intrusion. A single, obscure footpath led between the trunks to the front door. No vehicle could approach and only the distant hum of an aeroplane gave evidence to outside civilisation.

Commander Bruttius looked out across the indoor garden, her face expressionless as a four-year-old boy held a watering can over a tray of seeds, aided by a stern looking matron. The boy’s father appeared equally uninterested in the scene as he stood beside her. This monthly check-in was simply a duty he performed after two millennia of habit. The boy was his conduit to the future and, like nurturing a plant, he needed to be sure that his future body was properly provided for.

Without taking his eyes from his progeny, Lloyd Spenser-Chapman Jr, formerly known as Heracles and heir to Alexander the Great, drew a steady breath and enquired after the spy in his ranks. “Do you know where she plans to go next?”

“No, sir. She shares nothing with the others. I think it’s time we rid ourselves of this nuisance,” the commander suggested bluntly.

“Your instincts are usually good, commander.” Lloyd mulled over the options for a while, his second waiting patiently for her orders. “Very well. Dispose of her but be discrete. Wells and her family will want to investigate. Give them nothing.”

Bruttius’ eyes darkened with intent and her mouth turned up into a parody of a smile. “I will see to it personally, once I have apprehended Hugh.”

“Hmm. What of your progress with the traitors?” he asked. His voice hardened imperceptibly; he despised it when his underlings took matters into their own selfish hands. They didn’t understand his vision, his destiny. They were small and ignorant, only useful as fertilizer.

“Interrogation revealed little of use,” the commander confessed. “As foolish as they were, their decision to have minimal contact with Hugh was insightful. We have eyes on the Wells-Bering boy though. We will know if anyone makes a move against him.”

“I shall be very upset if he dies, commander. You know me well enough not to want to incur my wrath. I trust that you will show Hugh just how upset his thoughtless actions have made me?”

“With pleasure, sir.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts?
> 
> A/N  
> As an aside, and because I'm aware that it could easily become a sore point, I feel like I should explain that I'm not anti-religion. I neither believe nor disbelieve (and quite frankly I don't care either way). I think it would be arrogant of me to claim that my beliefs are 'real' when the nature of belief is so subjective, and I am not 'all knowing'. I'm happy with people hanging onto their religious beliefs when they're used to help and heal, less so when they're used to harm.
> 
> Too many ugly intentions are justified in the name of religion. That is the only theme I have attempted to use in this story.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many questions! I know that I keep tangling this story up with more and more threads. Eventually, I hope to unravel them all. Let's hope that I can remember where they all began!
> 
> The following few chapters will feature place/time specific headings. I had to rewrite a lot of the time specific parts because of the time difference between Colorado and Australia, and it was not easy to do! I'm still not convinced that it's entirely accurate, but it is what it is now.
> 
> While researching, I came across a few places/names that just jumped out at me. I'm pretty sure you'll know what I mean when you see them. Apologies! ;-D

**Chapter Five**

**Boulder, Colorado – Monday morning.**

Two small cases stood by the front door, anticipating the journey to the airport.

After their discussions with Abigail, Catherine and Catherine’s teacher, Myka and Helena were satisfied that they’d done everything in their power to support the eleven-year-old. Following some initial protests and upsets, Cat had fallen into a new routine and seemed much happier. The school had reported a miraculous change in her attitude to lessons and an improvement in her behaviour. The librarian was especially full of praise and Catherine almost blushed with pride when she was told this.

Mrs and Mrs Wells-Bering eventually made the difficult decision to chase the artefact that HG hoped to use in her teleporter. They wanted to be there and back within a couple of days but, with the time difference, knew that it might take the best part of a week. Eleanor and Rupert were going to stay in the guest room and Christina had agreed to commute to college until her parents were back. (Thomas was also planning to sleep over. His girlfriend had decided that her parents didn’t need to know about _that_ until their return though. If at all.)

Freddy hung around the kitchen door, half a sandwich held in his hand while he watched his parents saying goodbye to his youngest sister. His stomach churned in a way that had nothing to do with the combination of cheese, mustard and peanut-butter in his snack. _You’re fourteen,_ he thought, trying to make himself feel braver. _You don’t need your mommies all the time. Chrissie’s not upset_ , he emphasised, though wasn’t actually sure where his older sister was hiding at present.

He was anxious and he wasn’t sure that it was entirely due to the prospect of missing his mothers. As much as he _would_ miss them, he knew that he should be more excited by the idea of a house without their vigilant eyes everywhere, but instead there was just a twisting and gnawing feeling that sat in his gut. He watched as Catherine climbed all over their Mama in her enthusiasm to give the best goodbye. He was tempted to join in but held back. _Kids’ stuff,_ he told himself. He felt a pair of hands fall on his shoulders and a voice whisper in his ear. _“Strong men hug their mothers,”_ it told him before the hands gave him a gentle shove into the hall and Christina joined him with their parents.

Helena and Myka, mindful of their flight, eventually extracted themselves from octopus arms and grabbed their luggage. Pete’s car sat in the driveway, ready to escort the couple to the airport. As they were covered in more hugs and kisses at the door, he threw the bags in the trunk and smiled to himself at the adorable scene.

“I’m gonna keep my Claudi-farnsworth on me until you guys are back,” he reassured his friends once they were on the road and the frantically waving children were out of sight. Since the Warehouse still used the Farnsworth system to run their operations, the new caretaker, in collaboration with Artie and HG, had designed a new system to run independently from the old one. “We can keep each other updated.”

“Thanks, Pete,” Myka breathed from her seat in the back. She couldn’t tell whether the churning in the pit of her stomach was just because she didn’t want to leave the children for so long, at such a distance, or whether her instincts were trying to warn her of potential disaster but she appreciated knowing that her friend would be around to keep an eye on the situation.

From beside regent Bering, HG felt an echo of her wife’s concerns and reached across to entwine their fingers. The teleporter would work with the correct components in place, she was sure of it, and instinct told her that they were on the right track by going to Australia, but like Myka, being away from home and their children worried her.

The prevailing thought that kept her going was the knowledge that, by finishing her latest project, her family would have an added level of safety – an escape should all other plans fail. She hoped that they wouldn’t need it but felt that it would be better to be over prepared.

* * * * *

Over eighteen hours later, their plane touched down in Adelaide and ejected the two regents into the Australian night air. They’d slept sporadically on the plane, but the time difference was still jarring and they fell into their hotel room on Tuesday evening with huffs of relief. Early the following morning (after a quick chat with Norrie to check in while the kids were at school), with all their belongings in hand, they boarded a small charter-plane bound for Mildura; their artefact had crash-landed just east of Lake Victoria, a stone’s throw from the point where the Murray River met the Darling.

There was a brief debate over who would take the window seat, until Helena reached for one of Myka’s ticklish spots and wrestled the chuckling brunette into her seat, giving her the best view of the outback. It hardly made a difference anyway; HG moulded herself so closely against her wife that they both had a great view of the vast country over which they flew.

They landed in the small town, picked up the truck and supplies they’d arranged for their mission and began their route along the Murray towards the lake. Without air conditioning, the heat suffused their skin and soon their clothes were heavy with sweat. A large bottle of water sat, almost empty, between them. Despite the knowledge that there were no public toilets anywhere nearby, they drank plenty; relieving ones-self in the shelter of the vehicle was preferable to dehydration after all.

HG sat in the passenger seat, a tracking device perched on her knees so that she could direct her wife towards their target, and their Farnsworth in her hand as she chatted to their family back at home. “We miss you too, Catherine. Your mother and I are so proud of the efforts you’ve made this week; we would much rather be there with you to share in your success.”

“Maybe you could choose something for all of us to do when we get home, as a reward,” Myka suggested from her seat. Though she couldn’t see the expression of delight on her youngest’s face, excitement was evident in her reply.

_“Really!? Awesome! Can Jake come with us? Please?”_

Helena chuckled. “If I know your Uncle Pete, the entire Lattimer clan will likely join us.”

 _“Thanks, Mama! Chrissie wants to say goodbye and I’ve got to go clean my teeth,”_ she explained quickly and then blew kisses at the screen, shouted ‘love you guys’ and then thrust the Farnsworth at her sister.

Christina received an update of their mission and wished them luck before reassuring them that everything was fine. They chatted a little about their plans, Fredrick popped his head into view long enough to grunt something marginally-intelligible, and then they were saying their goodbyes and hanging up.

As Myka drove, Helena’s dark eyes alternated between the scenery and the tracking device held in her hand. “We need to turn soon,” she eventually advised the driver.

The younger regent frowned over her steering wheel. “I don’t think this road can get any smaller,” she thought out loud. The dirt-track they were on was rough enough. Would they have to venture off-road?

“Clearly, you’ve forgotten the lanes we braved between Cornwall and Devon,” HG teased.

A chuckle rose from Myka’s belly. “How could I? I thought that tractor was going to drive us right into the ditch. It’s a good job Christina has quick reflexes.”

“Here,” Helena said and pointed into the middle of nowhere. “The signal is coming from a quarter of a mile east.”

Myka slowed to a stop and stared out at the red dirt and distant scrap of woodland. If you could call it that. She eased her foot back on the gas and turned as instructed. Without a tyre-trampled path to guide her, the regent took her time navigating rocks, shrubs and holes, easing them ever closer to their destination. A somewhat familiar shape appeared on the horizon, just as her brain threw the words ‘this is too easy’ into her mind.

“Are those tents?” she asked the inventor.

HG felt her hopes falter and her heart sink. “I believe so,” she replied darkly. “The question is: whose?”

* * * * *

**Lake Victoria, Australia – Wednesday afternoon.**

It was gone. They’d travelled so far, left their young family behind and for what? An abandoned campsite and crushed hopes.

HG glared at her surroundings, her despondency turning into anger. She kicked a discarded food can, which hit the side of a tent and soared through the air before rolling to a stop at the other regent’s feet.

Myka glanced at the offended object and raised a brow at her wife. “Feel better?” she asked smartly. When Helena threw her a thoroughly un-amused look, the brunette softened. “I know it’s not what we were hoping for, but let’s not give up yet. We don’t know what happened here, or who took the satellite.” She wandered closer to the Brit and laid hands on her waist. “It’s a setback, that’s all. Ok?”

HG felt the effort her wife was making to try and exude confidence but could still feel the other woman’s doubt and fear beneath the surface. Myka needed her to pull herself together. Leaning closer, she pressed her lips gently against her partner’s. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll get the durational spectrometer.”

It quickly became clear that the camp had been abandoned shortly before their arrival. In their investigation, they discovered fresh tyre tracks heading off in the direction opposite from which they’d arrived and came to the conclusion that whoever had been there realised they were coming and left in a hurry. They watched the replay of the campers, first leisurely and then at fast pace, dismantling their equipment and laid eyes on the satellite before it too was pulled to pieces before part of it loaded into a purple-lined box.

“Well,” Myka commented as they watched spectral dust settling seconds before their own vehicle appeared in the image. “We’ve got eyes on the artefact and we know they’re not far ahead of us.”

Helena led the way back to the truck and hopped into the driver’s side. “I do not much fancy us losing our way in the outback, but neither do I see another option for tracking our adversary,” she said as she turned the key and stared the engine. “Do you, darling?”

Myka pointed the durational spectrometer in the direction of the fresh tyre-tracks and sighed. “No. I think we’ll have to just follow and hope...” She didn’t want to put a name to anything horrible that could happen out in the middle of nowhere and left the thought floating between them.

HG revved the engine and tried to mask her own unease with a sultry smirk, dropping in a teasing colloquialism to try to break the tension, “And hope that we do not come a cropper?”

Myka smiled at the effort. She pulled her wife into a firm kiss before settling back in her seat and showing that she was ready. “Chocks away?” she checked one last time.

Helena’s grin was in full force now as she eased onto the gas and replied with forced enthusiasm, “Tally-ho.”

Myka kissed the inventor’s cheek and relaxed into her chair as HG pulled away from the camp. They ate and drank as they drove across desert and scrub, taking care to stay in the tracks of their quarry to avoid damage to their vehicle. Each time they stopped, they were aware of time slipping away from them, but the outback was a dangerous place and they couldn’t afford to upset the wildlife and delay their chase even longer. As the sun approached the horizon and the sky became inflamed with oranges, pinks and reds, the regents began to worry that they might have to spend the night in their truck. The prospect wasn’t wholly unpleasant; they had supplies to last a few days, secure walls protecting them and spectacular views all around, but by morning the trail would be cold and there would be no way to follow their artefact.

Somewhat miraculously, as they crested another gently sloping hill, the horizon stretched into the far distance and the sunset picked out the distinctive shapes of a group of buildings.

Helena slowed, manoeuvring the truck close to a gorse bush in the hope that it might give them some cover. ‘Do you think it’s down there?’ she heard her wife ask. She nodded. “It certainly seems that way. I don’t like the idea of heading in there without knowing what their defences are like. We know that there are at least four of them. I would prefer some sort of reinforcement behind us.”

“And a solid plan,” Myka added. “The GPS says that we’re just north of Renmark. Claudia could find somewhere for us to stay the night so we can rest and regroup?” she suggested carefully. Helena was leading this mission and she’d promised herself that she would defer to her wife as much as possible. The sun was setting rapidly though and it would be reckless of them to head into a building where they had no backup, no intel and very few resources at their disposal.

Helena gazed longingly at the buildings. She could see a younger version of herself marching up to the front door and saying something clever before rendering everyone unconscious or immobile. She would waltz out, a smug smirk painting her lips, with the artefact held casually in hand. All in a day’s work! As much as she liked to reminisce about those more adventurous times, she had grown out of being so reckless. Without saying a word, she twined her hand with her wife’s and squeezed in reassurance.

Within an hour, they were pulling into a hotel car park and collecting their belongings. Claudia worked quickly; they had a suite and room service for the night, and Delta team dispatched from their current location in Christchurch, New Zealand, arriving ready to help them early the next morning. While picking at finger-food, they reviewed their findings.

The durational spectrometer had given them four faces and the artefact’s packaging to look for, but the real intel streamed to Myka’s tablet in the form of heat scans, and confirmed the number of opponents they should expect. In real-time, they watched the little, white blobs move around the compound and, after a while, worked out a patrol pattern. They logged possible weak spots and began a plan for the following day. Claudia’s chosen support team would be efficient and would expect to finish the job before they day’s end. Still, they would need direction from the experienced couple so the regents worked until they were happy that they had every foreseeable angle covered.

By the time they were satisfied with their efforts, it was late. Both wanted to call home and hear the voices of their little ones, but as they were hopefully all still tucked in bed in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, they would have to settle with trying to find time the following day. Helena threw her clothes over the back of a chair and disappeared into the bathroom while Myka pedantically packed all of their equipment into bags, ready for the morning. She resisted the urge to fold her wife’s discarded outfit and took pleasure in leaving her own neatly on a neighbouring chair, before walking into a now steam-filled en-suite.

Myka stepped into the shower behind the inventor, took a moment to appreciate the sight of the water rolling over a pale back, and moved forward to mould herself to her wife’s form. HG straightened in her arms, allowing the brunette to slide her chin onto a waiting shoulder. Sinuous fingers reached back to tangle into wet curls and pulled hungry mouths together.

Helena turned in her wife’s embrace until they were face-to-face and she could wind her arms around Myka’s shoulders. Despite her weary mind and body, the feel of her partner’s skin and lips against her own fuelled an ever-present desire. She sank into the kiss and allowed the tingling warmth of their skin-to-skin contact to calm her racing mind. It worked a little too well; the fears she had kept bottled up all day rose to the surface and brought a desperate sob with it. The kiss broke and she felt Myka’s lips all over her face as arms surrounded her and pulled them tightly together. HG buried her face into her wife’s shoulder and allowed the tears to flow like the gentle patter of water down her body.

The salty effusion stopped almost as quickly as it had begun. Helena took one last, shuddering breath before exhaling all of her bottled-up tension into her partner’s long neck. She felt a weight lift from her shoulders and trembled with relief.

Myka leant back and wiped the tears clear from the inventor’s cheeks. Warm water continued to rain down around them but she ignored the rivulets that replaced the overloaded emotions. “Honey, we can do this,” she insisted. “We’re a team. I know there’s a lot at stake and you’re worried about the kids, but we’re here now. We’re committed and we’re going to see this through.”

HG nodded stiffly, her forehead resting heavily against Myka’s. “I know,” she whispered, trying with all her heart to _believe_ those words.

“We can’t know the future. Not even _you_ , HG Wells.” She smiled and rubbed their noses together, eliciting a chuckle that she found adorable. Lips met of their own volition and moved against one another with increasing fervour. Myka sighed as they parted. It was tempting to immediately find solace in physical intimacy, but she wanted to address her wife’s fears before they embarked on their mission. “Helena, I’m scared too. You know that; you can feel it, can’t you?”

“Yes,” HG answered. It was comforting in a way, to know that she wasn’t alone with her aching emotions. She automatically felt guilty for the thought and held her wife a little closer.

“It’s ok,” Myka reassured the Brit. “We can’t let our fears over what _might_ go wrong dictate our need to act when we must. Coming here was the right thing to do with the information we had before we left home. We will win,” she insisted again, pushing her conviction and belief across their bond. Finding dark eyes staring at her intently, she was satisfied that she’d shored up as much of Helena’s doubts as she was able. “One day at a time. For now though…” She captured her wife’s lips again and smiled when the inventor hummed in response. “Let’s make the most of our time without having to worry about being quiet.”

* * * * *

**Boulder, Colorado – Wednesday morning.**

Christina gazed out of her bedroom window at the peacefully empty street and shivered. Her parents had been gone just over forty-eight hours and her sense of unease had been growing gradually ever since.

At first, the freedom and responsibility had consumed her attention and she’d jumped with gusto into the role of big sister/mom/overlord. She and her great-grandpa made lunch while Eleanor and Thomas distracted Catherine, and Freddy entertained himself. In the evening, once the younger two were in bed, the adults sat in the garden and chatted about more of HG’s adolescent antics. A little before midnight, Christina and Thomas snuggled close in the young woman’s childhood bed and fooled around amidst giggles and breathy whispers, until they each succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep.

All the following day, Christina had struggled to fight the sensation of phantom eyes watching her family - at the lake with Thomas and Fredrick before school, and in the afternoon at the park, where Catherine raced around with Jake, and Freddy preened in front of some of his classmates. Well into the evening, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled and her stomach churned, but she continued to put on a front.

After a sleepless night though, Christina realised that it wasn’t just a case of being nervous with her parents away from home, her sixth sense was awake and alert; she needed to heed it. Somewhere out there, danger lurked. The question was – what should she do about it?

She pulled her dressing gown on over her night-shirt, glanced with a fond smile at the figure still in her bed and sneaked ninja-like out of the room. As she’d hoped, she found her great-grandparents already in the kitchen, a teapot between them and deep in conversation. They smiled as she approached and pulled a stool out for her to join them.

“Good morning, dear,” Eleanor greeted the young woman as she rose and reached for a mug. “Coffee?”

“Please,” Christina replied with a grateful nod. “Caffeine is going to be the theme of the day I think.”

Rupert placed a hand atop Christina’s and offered her an attentive ear. “Have you had trouble sleeping again?”

“More nightmares?” Mrs Wells added.

“No,” Christina shook her head as she squeezed her great-grandfather’s hand and tried to find the words for what she was feeling. “I just can’t seem to shake this feeling.” A steaming mug appeared in front of her and she took a quick sip. Neither of the other adults jumped in with questions; they waited patiently for her to gather her thoughts. The certainty she felt in her bedroom stayed with her so that when the words finally found their way to her mouth, they were full of conviction. “Someone’s watching us. I think they have been watching us for a while. I don’t know for how long but at the very least, since Mum and Ma left on Monday.”

In any other family, a declaration such as this would have sparked an inquiry into the young  woman’s mental health. A diagnosis like ‘paranoia’ or ‘schizophrenia’ might have been batted around. Eleanor and Rupert took their great-granddaughter’s suspicions seriously though and immediately began making plans.

“I’ve spoken to Miss Donovan,” Mr Wells began as he returned to the kitchen after ten minutes in the library, “She’s going to send the rest of Thomas’ team here to remain on stand-by until Myka and Helena return.”

Christina nodded beneath a frown. “I don’t want my moms to be worried about what’s happening here when we don’t really know if anything bad is going to happen yet. I want them to be focussed on keeping themselves safe.”

Rupert held up a hand to halt the flurry of concerns. “We had the same thought, flower. Rest assured, Claudia won’t tell them of our preparations until after they have the artefact, or something of significance happens here. We should perhaps let Mr Lattimer know however.”

The young woman nodded and relaxed visibly just as the sound of footfalls on the stairs reached their ears. She turned to find her boyfriend in the doorway and smiled softly at his appearance – blue eyes squinted sleepily and a tuft of golden-blonde hair stuck up from the back of his head. “Hey,” she said as a blush crept unexpectedly up her neck. She wasn’t used to him being around her house in the morning and feeling Rupert and Eleanor’s amused eyes on them brought on a bout of shyness.

Thomas winked at his girlfriend and took advantage of HG’s absence to kiss her good morning. He helped himself to coffee and pulled a stool closer to Christina. “I’m sure my ears were burning on my way down. What’re we talking about?” His relaxed demeanour slowly hardened as the others explained the situation, until a frown sat heavily across his brow. He sat up straighter, a commanding expression now prominent. “I’ll liaise with the rest of my team when they get here; we have systems in place so they can keep an eye out and report back if anything is wrong.”

Christina smiled stiffly. She loved him and appreciated having someone who wanted to protect her and her family, but she found the intensity of his take-charge attitude grating at times. It had been the driving force in her need for a break shortly after she’d woken up from her time in bronze, and the crux of half of their occasional squabbles. Bearing in mind the many conversations she’d had with Myka on the subject, she reminded herself that it was fear for her safety that fuelled him and not a lack of confidence in her ability to take care of herself.

“Rick and Cat will be in school all day and you and I have lectures this morning. I don’t know what to tell them. I’m not sure it’s a great idea to stick to routine though. What if they – whoever _they_ are – is looking for a crack in our armour, a vulnerable point that they can exploit?”

Silence reigned between the four for several seconds before Eleanor appeared to have an idea. “I think we can be sure that Fredrick and Catherine will be safe in school for now. From what we’ve learnt so far, Mr Chapman likes his underlings to favour the quiet approach. You two,” she gestured to the young couple, “will be available after lunch so I suggest that we have a family outing - something that will keep us busy for most of the afternoon into the evening.”

“And pick the other two up from school?” Christina nodded to herself. “Maybe even before last period. Tommy, does that suit you?”

He’d been weighing up the pros and cons as the two women spoke. He’d rather keep them all in the house, where he knew they were well defended, at least until backup arrived, but he knew that there were benefits to feigning ignorance too. “Being away from the house might draw them away too,” he thought aloud. “If the guys arrive early enough, that’ll given them time to set up some vantage points. I suggest somewhere busy for our outing. The zoo?”

With time rapidly running out – sounds of movement reaching them from upstairs – they all agreed that the zoo was an acceptable choice. Catherine’s jubilant outcry overshadowed the suspicious, narrow-eyed stare that Fredrick adopted at the announcement and both adolescents were shipped off to school without firing awkward questions at the adults.

Christina slid into her car with Thomas by her side, both of them wearing masks of normalcy. She barely paid attention to her lecture, all the while going over and over in her head the possibilities for why someone might be tailing her family. Did it have anything to do with the unsettling dreams that had plagued her over the years? Was this a sign that fate had finally caught up with them? Was her parents’ latest goal merely a way to divide their family before Heracles swooped down to tear them asunder and claim the Warehouse as his prize?

She’d been settling into the idea that her ultimate battle was still years away, but perhaps it had crept upon her faster than she’d recognised. _I’m not ready_ , she realised with a horrible jolt as she packed a disused notebook into her bag and made her way back to her car. She didn’t have what it would take to win. If the battle started now, she would lose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to throw the cubs into the deep end while mama bears are away?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dropping another cause for concern in this chapter. After all, what’s a battle without characters that you love to hate?

** Chapter Six **

**Near Renmark, Australia – Thursday afternoon.**

It had seemed like such a promising start to the day but now, as Myka lifted a shaky hand to her temple, feeling a wet trickle running over her ear and knowing that it must be blood, she realised that the outlook was not so rosy. A shadow loomed over her and she turned slowly to glare up at a horribly familiar face.

“Hmm, it appears that Wells’ whore remembers me,” a smug voice crowed from above. “How nice. Is that because of my handsome good looks,” he posed and grinned at the look of revulsion that shivered through the woman. “Or my sparkling personality? Last we met, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and full with child. Had I known then that which I know now…” he trailed off wistfully.

“Kipling,” Myka croaked, her tone one of disbelief. “How…?” It wasn’t the overt vanity that caused her to recoil but the mad, gleeful spark in his eyes, the knowledge of his run ins with her wife, and the memory of his conceited manner as attempted to take the artefact that had transported her and an eight-year-old Christina to 1890’s London.

“ _Agent_ Kipling, if you please,” he admonished lightly. He appeared in no hurry to be anywhere and quite content to continue bewildering his captive. “Oh, let us not be uncivilized, Miss Bering. Manners maketh man you know.” He held a hand out, inviting her to sit up. She ignored the gesture, struggled from the floor under her own steam and found a box to lean against. “Miss Wells is not the only one who was given the gift of time.” Myka groaned something, and he paused. “You will have to enunciate, madam; I do not speak mumbled-colonial.”

“Wells-Bering, Mrs,” the regent spat, emphasising the _Mrs._

“My-my, haven’t we been busy,” Kipling sneered, disapproval clear in his tone. “The little fatherless bastards are almost grown too, I hear.” He smirked as she made to swing at him and pushed her back with the toe of his boot. “Do behave. I would not wish to render you unconscious again and have you miss all the fun.”

As she slowly regained her senses, Myka felt panic and frustration overwhelm her thoughts. The panic was her own. The frustration…? “Where’s Helena?”

**Earlier that day.**

With just enough sleep to make them alert and useful, Helena and Myka rolled out of bed, pulled on clean underwear and their clothes from the previous day (HG’s slightly more creased than her wife’s), and gathered their possessions. They called home and listened to their youngest’s excited chatter about the zoo but barely had time to question any of the others before sending their love and explaining that they hoped to be travelling home soon, possibly by the end of the day. Hopes were high.

Down in the lobby, they met the expected back up – a quartet of people who looked to the untrained eye like your average, garden variety tourists. It wasn’t until they were back on the fringes of wild, open space that they dropped the act and came together to discuss their plan of attack.

“We don’t have the option of sneaking in,” Myka began as she laid out the carefully drawn map that the inventor had sketched the night before. “The land is fairly flat on approach so no cover. An air drop would draw too much attention to us, so that leaves us with a direct path to the front door.”

“We’re not using the cover of darkness?” Dex, the leader of Delta team, asked from behind a stocky woman with a long plait sticking out of the back of her cap.

“That _would_ be more advisable, but time is of the essence,” HG explained. “We can’t risk the possibility of them moving the artefact.”

“How do we know that they haven’t already?” another of the new arrivals, Dore, wondered aloud.

Myka exchanged a look with her wife. They had both entertained the same concern as they lay, replete in each other’s arms the night before. “We don’t,” the brunette regent replied simply. “We have to hope that they haven’t had chance yet. I realise that’s not much to go on but it’s all we have.”

None of the attentive faces watching the couple appeared concerned by this news, instead nodding in quiet acceptance. “It’s fine ma’am,” Dex assured the regents. “We’re prepared for a frontal assault.”

“We’ve planned for more of a frontal infiltration than an assault,” Myka continued. “Minimal combat if we can swing it.”

“Ground rules for retaliation?” the woman with the plait, Dina, asked. “Are there any circumstances under which we should entertain surrender, or employ a fatal solution?”

“Use your best judgement,” Helena responded. “Avoid killing if you can but don’t gamble your own lives in the process.” The last thing the Victorian wanted on her hands was more blood. “Myka and I intend to talk to whoever is running their operation. We do not yet know if they are affiliated with Mr. Chapman or his associates, but it’s a fair wager to assume that anyone who knows how to safely transport an artefact is in the business. We do not expect any freedom to enter the property; I will subdue the guard on the gate. Claudia has provided you all with teslas, yes?”

The group grinned and Dex opened his mouth to speak. “Mini-teslas, tesla grenades and goo-darts,” he confirmed of their arsenal.

“Goo-darts?” Myka queried as her eyebrows shot up.

Having spoken with the caretaker about her newest invention, HG explained, “It’s a self-propelling cartridge that fires a concentrated dose of goo at your target. The tip is designed to penetrate most known materials so the goo has the best chance of neutralising any artefact or its effects.”

“Neat,” the brunette commented and breathed in sharply in anticipation when one of the cavalry handed her a small pouch containing three darts.

“You have to admire her ingenuity,” Helena observed. “She’s a treasure.”

“Really?” Myka began teasingly. “Even when she pops round, unannounced, and clam-jams you?”

The inventor’s eyes narrowed, and she turned to stare at her wife. “I really dislike that phrase.” As an afterthought she added, “And I do _not_ condone that, as you well know. It surprises me that you are so accommodating in those circumstances.”

“The expression on your face is worth it,” Myka chuckled for a moment before her expression hardened. “Though there was that one time… I was so close; I could have killed her.”

A non-too-subtle cough brought the regents back to their current situation, both clearly having forgotten that they had an audience.

“I do beg your pardon,” Helena apologised, though the upturned corner of her mouth put the sincerity of her words into question. “Where were we? Ah, yes… If all goes well, we will have a dozen dozing guards on our hands and time to find the artefact.”

“We hope that they will have left the artefact in the box they used to transport it,” Myka picked up after the Brit, the lingering blush on her cheeks a definite sign that she felt genuinely embarrassed by her deviation. “If they have, picking it up will be easy, if not, please do not approach it without Helena or myself there,” she warned as she looked up at the four faces hanging on her every word.

“No concerns there, ma’am. We’re your back-up. Just tell us how high,” Dex confirmed the order for himself and his colleagues.

The six of them spent almost an hour talking through their roles and then checking their equipment before they were all finally ready to head out. Deciding to take a break from leading for a few minutes, the regents allowed one of the quartet to drive while they made themselves as comfortable as possible in the bed of the truck and took strength from their connection.

**Near Renmark, Australia – Thursday afternoon.**

Helena tried to control the rising tide of frustration as she played with her bonds and attempted to figure out the mechanism. The chair to which she was tied rolled slightly on its casters, and the sound echoed around the room. There was no way that she could be subtle about what she was doing, but for now at least, she remained alone.

As her fingers slipped, again, she bit back an urge to scream and felt tears prickle behind closed lids. _No, you absolutely cannot cry!_ she told herself firmly. _You’ve been in worse scrapes than this. Buck up, HG; Myka’s counting on you._ Taking several calming breaths, she resumed her efforts on the ropes binding her and tried to figure out a way out of the mess she’d gotten everybody in to.

She should have called everything off at the first sign that things weren’t unfolding as they’d expected. Instead of taking the chance to render the gate guard unconscious, they’d allowed themselves to be baffled by his unsurprised grunt, the rising of the barrier and a finger pointing them to their destination…

**Four hours earlier.**

Myka and Helena exchanged a look of concern at the unexpected hospitality but signalled to drive on into the compound anyway. Four bodies disembarked from the truck, leaving two of Claudia’s specialists to remain in their hiding place, hoping that the extra bodies would not be needed. They stayed in a tight group, the two at the rear watching out for the regents, who they had been trained to protect.

Another guard met them at the door to the main building and invited them inside, seemingly with very little interest in their reasons for being there. Helena recognised the face from the durational spectrometer and filed his location away for later, her thoughts taking her back to the heat scans she had seen of his patrol route the evening before. He pointed them into a large, open room and left them there, closing the door quietly behind as he returned to his post. Though the sound was not inherently intimidating, it echoed in the empty space and set all their nerves on edge.

Minutes ticked by until the inventor was kicking herself quite harshly for having led them all into a trap without the least bit of resistance. She felt Myka’s hand on her lower back and soaked up the comfort being offered. Her wife’s lips brushed against her cheek and the American’s voice sounded softly in her ear.

“Let’s not panic until we know we have reason. We’re a team, honey. Remember? No fault lies with you alone, no matter how all of this began.”

HG nodded slowly and pulled herself together, piece by piece. They began to explore after thinking they’d been left alone for too long and discovered with relief that they weren’t locked in. Every door, of which there was one on each wall, opened onto a corridor lined with more doors though, conjuring images of a labyrinth.

“We could cover more ground if we split into two teams,” Dina suggested with a tone that made it sound like the last thing she really wanted to do. “Though I’m guessing that there’re going to be more than one or two surprises waiting for us.”

“Why let us in?” Myka chewed aloud on this thought. “They obviously knew we were coming. We couldn’t hide the fact that we were heading this way, but if they’d focussed on our approach alone, surely we’d have met some form of challenge. Yet no one’s here,” she gestured to their surroundings.

“It could be a power play; a way to unnerve us,” the inventor added her two cents. “If they’re prepared to barter. Otherwise…” she trailed off. It was quite clear to all of them that they might have unwittingly stepped into their own personal house of horrors. “Well, then there is also the very real possibility that whoever has the artefact is using this time to leave with it, while we flounder in here, questioning their motives and generally lollygagging around,” she finished with a flourish of a hand, which fell to her hair in a habitual motion of frustration.

“I suppose there’s nothing for it then. Let’s begin with the left-hand door and work our way around, clockwise,” the younger regent decided on the spot. “At the very least, I don’t see the benefit of standing here all day. We stick together for now, until we need to or have no choice but to split up. Sound good?”

The fierce, commanding sound of her voice encouraged a spark of determination in her audience and they appeared to grow in confidence. In the end, it was neither choice nor necessity that forced their little group to part ways, but a singular unfortunate event. Along their second corridor, after finding several empty rooms, tensions were running high. Privately, HG had decided that whoever owned the property and had invited them in, was an evil genius. There was no need for cheap thrills of ghoulish apparitions or thuggish mercenaries, the anticipation of every horrible possibility was enough to keep them all on edge. It was almost a relief when Myka opened the next door to find an open box on a table – a curious feeling that lasted the time it took for the artefact inside to react to their presence and pull Helena into a blinding vortex.

* * * * *

It was no use; her restraints were too well designed, or else powered by an inexplicable force. Helena dropped her head onto her chest, breathed out a long, lungful of air and shivered as the sheen of sweat on her skin cooled at the impact. She tried to imagine what Myka might be doing at that very moment. Had she secured the artefact? Did she imagine that HG was trapped inside, as Myka herself had been inside the scarab? Would she take it straight home to figure it out or were she, Dex and Dina scouring the building looking for her?

She had tried reaching out to her wife through their bond but got nothing. Myka was either actively blocking her or else she was unconscious. Helena rather hoped for the former because she couldn’t stand the thought of what might have happened to knock her love out. The fact that the artefact she wanted worked was of little interest to her if the price was her beloved’s health. Holding onto the knowledge that the other regent was still alive, the inventor forced her eyes open and began to take in the room anew.

Commercial magnolia walls, a single table with a second chair tucked beneath it and three small, high windows to let in shafts of bright orange. The direction of the sunlight, its colour and the speed at which it moved across the wall, told HG that they were well into the afternoon. She’d been incapacitated for hours. With her bonds unbreakable and no way of knowing for sure if back up would ever find her, she only hoped that whoever had tied her up had also left the extra chair because they planned on returning.

* * * * *

**Denver, Colorado – Wednesday afternoon.**

Fredrick watched his younger sister’s enthusiasm as they wandered around the zoo and envied her ignorance and naivete. He wished he could just enjoy their afternoon deviation from the daily routine of school, but he couldn’t. For a while, not even the majestic big cats, which usually fascinated him, could take his mind off the fact that Christina and their great-grandparents were hiding something.

He supposed it was inevitable really; their parents left town for a few days and his twin went mad with power or became paranoid about being attacked. And since Christina was the ‘chosen one’, Rupert and Eleanor were bound to believe her without question. He conveniently forgot about the sense of danger he’d felt earlier in the week, having chalked the uncomfortable churning of his stomach up to watching his parents leave.

Perhaps he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. He was out in the fresh air, taking his ‘learning experience’ outside while all his class mates were cooped up behind desks, attempting in vain to combat the soporific effects of their teacher’s stilted approach to lessons. If only Holly could be there with him.

It was a fine balance, keeping his athletic and persona in high school while being a friendly face amongst the academic population too. Swimming was not as high profile as football but his dedication to the sport had provided him with a physique that the jocks respected, and while he didn’t spend his time following them around campus, they were on speaking terms. His IQ and test scores gave him a similar relationship with the brainy kids too, but he’d happily found himself with friends in limbo – something that Christina liked to tease him about.

So, while his friends weren’t the smartest or most athletic, they complimented his reluctance to take a side in the perpetual ‘brain vs brawn’ battle. And yeah, he got some backlash at times, when he stood up for the weak and showered interest in learning or celebrated a victory on the field during Phys-Ed, but he tried to shrug it off as much as possible. It was ridiculous really that so many of his peers still followed those tired social rules. He knew enough kids from both sides to know that they were mostly decent people, so why did they refuse to get along? At the very least, his observations would make an interesting anthropological study.

He wasn’t quite sure when Holly Brown had popped up on his radar. One day he’d been making his usual notes in class and she’d asked to borrow a pen. During the all-too-brief exchange, he’d realised with a start that he’d seen her eyes in a dream he’d once had about riding the bus to prom. Had she hit on him in the dream? It didn’t take him long to convince himself that she had. Although he couldn’t remember precisely when they’d first met, he recalled with vivid clarity every interaction since.

 _I should ask her to hang out,_ he thought and instantly blushed. Damn his Mama for passing down her bashful genes!

“Hey, Rick!” Christina called to him from several yards ahead. “Closing time, little brother. We’re going out for dinner. That ok?”

Fredrick raised an internal brow, noting the signs of stress on his sister’s face but decided not to comment. She had to let something slip eventually and if she didn’t he’d find some way to get the truth out of her. “Yeah, sure,” he answered and shrugged nonchalantly, trying to appear non-the-wiser for her odd behaviour.

It was during dinner that he got several messages from his friends to tell him how jealous they were that he’d escaped school early. While Cat monopolised the adults’ attentions, he tried secretly to have a conversation of his own.

“Fredrick,” his great-grandfather’s voice drew his attention several minutes later. Rupert’s expression was serious but understanding when he caught the teen’s eye. “I’m fairly certain that your mothers do not condone electronic devices at the dinner table.”

Biting back a sharp ‘they’re not here’, Freddy sighed. “Let me just tell them I’ll talk to them later,” he replied as his thumbs flew over the key pad. When he looked back up, Christina was giving him the ‘mom’ face. “What?” he challenged her.

The young woman rolled her eyes at her brother. “You are _such_ a teen right now. Don’t think you can do whatever you like because our moms aren’t at home.”

“What, like pull my siblings out of school to distract them from my paranoid delusions?” he mumbled under his breath, just loud enough that only she would hear.

A pained smile, almost a grimace, passed over Christina’s features before she carefully schooled her reaction. She should have just left him alone. “You would rather be in school?” she asked as she avoided the question.

“I’d rather know why you think we’re not safe at home,” he answered while still keeping his voice low.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” she deflected. “Just a precaution.”

He wasn’t mollified. “Against what?”

“Nothing,” she responded with her sweetest smile. “Do you want dessert?”

Fredrick raised an eyebrow in his twin’s direction but decided to say no more. At the word ‘dessert’ Catherine grabbed their sister’s attention again and they began scanning the menu together. Freddy had the distinct impression that Christina was making a meal of it simply to avoid answering any more of his questions, and since Rupert and Eleanor appeared to be looking to the young prodigy for their cues, he decided to revisit his efforts when they were home and his little sister was asleep.

**Near Renmark, Australia - Thursday afternoon.**

A chill ran through Helena’s body as soon as _he_ stepped into the room and she immediately regretted hoping for someone to come along to interrogate her. _No, it can’t be,_ she thought as an instinct deep inside identified her captor. Dark eyes scanned his figure frantically, hoping to find something that would contradict her conclusion. They’d never met but she couldn’t shake the certainty and dread.

Chapman’s mouth curled into a smirk. “Blood is our bond, Miss Wells. You feel it, no?” He watched her eyes narrow and her mouth tighten into a thin line. “I do not require you to speak; keep your silence if it gives you some sense of control.”

With a gracefulness that surprised the regent, Lloyd crossed to the table and lowered himself into the extra chair. He spent a few minutes rearranging the cuffs of his shirt, giving HG opportunity to study her adversary. He was well turned out and reminded her of many of her father’s friends. His mannerisms spoke of a person who was very particular about how he appeared to others, but also suggested an element of obsession in how he conducted himself. He seemed in no rush to talk to her and she realised that he was waiting her out. She rolled her eyes.

Helena fought back her predisposition to say the first derogatory words that came to mind. If there was any chance of escaping this situation without a huge struggle, it would be because she kept a cool head. “Whatever your reason for detaining me here, speak it.”

Despite her careful wording, Chapman detected the underlying animosity she harboured. He smiled but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “You assume much regarding my motivation, I am sure. Whatever you think you know, Miss Wells, I assure you that you have barely scratched the surface.”

“That is no longer my name,” HG told him as she processed his words.

“My apologies, Mrs Wells-Bering,” he said with what sounded like genuine regret. “You expect the worst from me, I understand. By now you will know that you are a descendant of my aunt’s and you will know that I intended to remove the Warehouse from my father’s control – an intention that remains with me still. Your remit is to oppose me. You might be surprised to learn that I encourage your efforts.”

“Why?” Helena asked bluntly.

Lloyd observed the inventor for several seconds as he leant back in his chair and brought his hands together on top of the table. “You once saw the world in the way that I do. Mankind cannot be trusted to hold the yoke of its destiny. It needs guidance with even the simplest of concepts. We are not unalike, you and I. I too strive for peace and compassion. I would prefer a less destructive path towards my goal, but as I know you understand, there are times when force is the most efficient vehicle.” A pause gave the regent time to digest these statements. “In regards to your question though, answer me this: what is victory worth without opposition?”

The inventor frowned. She had expected a madman, someone who bragged of his accomplishments and belittled her own. Lloyd Spenser-Chapman Junior was lucid, patient and fair? Where was the villain that her family were prepared to thwart? “You believe that victory must be earned?”

“Precisely. My time is close at hand and I have been patient long enough.” Another ‘almost smile’ touched his lips. “Since you and your wife were so determined to follow me here, I decided that I could not miss an opportunity to speak with you and offer an alternative for you to consider.”

“Now we come to it,” HG concluded and rolled her eyes. “No matter your reasons, I will not stand by or enable you to gain total control of the Warehouse. Its power is for no _one_ man alone.” She watched as something, a shadow, crossed over his features and his expression tightened.

“Consider the alternative, my dear: though the regents stand for humility in control, their ranks were far too easily corrupted. Warehouse 14’s agents toil diligently under Miss Donovan’s watchful eye, and their efforts are commendable, but with a word, I could have them release chaos and destruction upon the world. The regents are already in my pocket and this game we play puts more than _your_ family’s lives at stake.”

“If they’re already under your control, then haven’t you already won?” Helena wondered, though she surmised that the entity that lived in the Warehouse somehow trumped his corporeal efforts.

“You are asking the wrong questions,” Chapman hissed as his tone became increasingly more irritated.

“And you’re barking up the wrong tree. There may have been a time when you could have convinced me otherwise, but that ship sailed long ago. I will not be a part of your egomaniacal efforts to control the Warehouse.”

For several seconds, he looked as if he were going to explode and Helena wondered if she was about to see the Mr Hyde behind his Dr Jekyll. That ominous, almost shadow clouded over his eyes again but he straightened in his seat and reined it in before she could get a good look at it. She gave a cursory tug on her bonds and was shocked to feel them fall away behind her chair. Dark eyes once again scrutinised the ancient entity sitting opposite and waited for a reaction as she raised her hands to rest them in front of her.

“I truly wish you no harm, Mrs Wells-Bering, but if you force my hand, I will not hesitate to act.” His head turned to the side as if he were listening to something beyond the room and, nodding to himself, he rose, crossed the small space and stood against the wall that connected to the adjacent room. “I regret the hardships you must endure after today, but I would not have given the order if it were not necessary.”

Helena could hear the voices and footsteps along the corridor now. They were not her back up but by the sounds of things, Chapman’s guards were preparing for a fight. “What order?” she asked, not caring about the strain of panic rising in her voice. “What have you done?”  As if triggered by the question, an echo of dread ran the length of her body and she felt Myka’s panic as her own. A burst of love, undiluted and blinding, swiftly followed and then… nothing. Gone. Numb. She was halfway out of her seat as Lloyd slipped a hand into his pocket and curled his fingers around an object there.

“You will see soon enough,” he told her and before her outstretched hand could reach him, he disappeared through the wall.

* * * * *

**Boulder, Colorado – Thursday morning.**

Hugh threw a rock against the wall of his hideout and cursed. Everything had been going so well; the boy was in his sights, with parents out of the country and the entire family seemed oblivious to his presence. The old couple residing with them would pose no threat and the young couple were so wrapped up in each other that he began to wonder if he could live through his mission after all.

The trip to the zoo had thrown him off but he’d bought a ticket and watched as they cooed at the animals like any other family there. Not that they _were_ like any other family, he reminded himself – _the devil wears many disguises._

He kicked himself for not having noticed the guardian earlier. Wouldn’t have noticed them either if it hadn’t been for his aching bladder. He knew that Wells and Bering would have security measures in place around their property so he wandered deep into the woodland behind their house to find a convenient place to relieve himself. He spotted her, an imposing figure dousing a fire, as he rounded a dense thicket of trees and came upon her camp. With no vehicle nearby or other route of escape, he threw her what he hoped was a naturally quizzical glance and wandered on as if he was simply out for a stroll.

Though she let him go without challenge, he knew she’d memorised his face. There was no way he would have a chance to target the boy at home now. He’d been counting on waiting until the teen left the boundary of his property to walk the three blocks to his friend’s house, as he had done the last two Thursday evenings, but if they had organised protection, then he might not even leave the safety of his den until the mothers were back. By then it would be too late.

Looking around the abandoned building that he’d adopted, he formulated a new plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hands up - who wants to see Hugh thrown into a pit of fire ants?


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, not sorry...

** Chapter Seven **

**Near Renmark, Australia – Thursday afternoon.**

Helena slapped her palms against the wall in frustration, fear and anger. Her mind was reeling with the revelations of her conversation with Chapman: the confusion of a deep and unexpected sympathy, and now the terror that gripped her from his parting words.

A confrontation had broken out behind the door, reminding the inventor of her more immediate concerns. Knowing that she needed to escape from the room before she could even begin to find out what he’d meant as he left, HG pushed off from the wall and tried the handle of the door. Surprise hit her again as it turned easily and the corridor came into view, but she didn’t let it slow her down.

Channelling her fears into deadly efficiency, she grabbed the closest guard from behind and applied pressure to his airways. As his body went limp in her arms, she had to force herself to let go and not suffocate the life out of him. That old friend, rage, tasted hot in the back of her throat and she fought against it as she moved onto her next victim.

Once the guards were all unconscious, she turned to find the two specialists who’d hidden in the truck, Dill and Dore. “Good work,” she acknowledged before moving swiftly on. “Have you seen Myka and the others?” she asked while trying not to sound too panicked.

“Yes ma’am,” Dore confirmed and noted the slight relaxing of the regent’s posture. “Dex and Dina are outside, waiting. They have the artefact,” he added as he began to lead her back the way he’d entered the building.

“And my wife?” _Please let her be ok,_ were the unspoken words behind that question.

Specialist Dill held his tongue for a moment, as if he was wondering how to put his answer into words. “She was not conscious when we left them to come find you. But she seemed stable.”

Helena’s step faltered but she quickly found it again and picked up her pace. ‘Not conscious’ meant ‘alive’ and that was the thought she intended to hold onto.

* * * * *

**Some hours earlier.**

Myka’s throat released a sound between pain and shock as she watched her wife disappear into the very artefact they’d been seeking. She barely had time to comprehend what had happened before chaos erupted around her: the lights flickered out, several loud _pops_ filled the silence, and the sound of bodies hitting the floor reached her ears. Before she could begin to respond and defend herself, something heavy fell against the side of her head, knocking her out.

Regaining consciousness to find Agent Kipling staring down at her had been disconcerting enough but as she realised her situation and thought about her companions, her concerns were with _them_. More specifically though, she was worried for her wife. Kipling had never hidden his contempt for Agent Wells and it was clear that his opinions had not changed at all.

As she glared up at him and waited for him to answer her inquiry regarding the whereabouts of her spouse, she wondered how he was still alive. To be bronzed there would likely have been a record, and someone would have needed access to the Warehouse for him to be debronzed. Had someone in Warehouse 14 released him? She and her colleagues had been aware of regents who supported their enemy in his quest to control the Warehouse, so it stood as a possibility; any one of them could have supported Kipling’s reanimation. Other than that, Myka wasn’t aware of any other way that the hateful agent could have survived for so long, or why he remembered her when they’d gone to such lengths to make everybody forget.

Her ‘where’s Helena?’ hung in the air and she knew form his derisive expression that she wasn’t going to get any sort of satisfactory answer. “Fine,” she said and dismissed the question, deciding to pull his attention back to her. “So, what do you want?” she asked, her tone dry, as if his answer was of little consequence to her.

“You escaped my judgement when you appeared in London,” Kipling began and seemed to grow with purpose. “Without Mr Wells’ interference, my record would have been flawless.”

A loud, sardonic scoff punctuated his statement. “You’re delusional,” Myka blurted, the sheer abhorrence she felt causing the words to fly from her mouth without censure. “Even if I _had_ been an innocent victim of an artefact, I would not have wished for _your_ help. You attacked a woman and a child, without provocation, and expected no reprisal.” Fury replaced the self-assurance in his eyes and he advanced on her. The regent felt her insides clench in wary anticipation but her outrage was too great to halt her tirade. “You deserved whatever punishment you were given, you arrogant, power-hungry…”

Smack!

She saw the telegraphed backhand coming but was too stubborn to move in time to avoid the full impact. As her head was still throbbing from the earlier attack, it took several seconds before she could lift it to meet his eyes again. “My case in point,” she hissed as she wiped at her lip to check for more blood. She watched his agitated steps around the room and frowned internally. It was odd. She had expected more aggression, another show of power to assert his importance but, if she was reading him right, he looked almost nervous.

_Why would he be nervous? He’s not afraid of Helena; he’s too stupid and full of himself for that._ And then it hit her. “ _He’s_ here, isn’t he? Your boss?” By the expression on his face, she didn’t need him to answer. He exchanged a look with one of the guards, who stood silently by the exit, while she made another conclusion, “Did he tell you not to hit me?” she asked and smirked when his eyes narrowed with annoyance. Despite knowing that she probably shouldn’t deliberately antagonise him, she actively enjoyed having the upper hand for a moment.

It was a moment that didn’t last long though. Remembering that he needed to restrain himself physically apparently gave him more incentive to assert himself in other ways and he advanced upon the regent with intent darkening his gaze. Myka leaned back as he filled her personal space, but with crates stacked behind her, there was nowhere for her to go. Her hands curled into fists, ready for an excuse to wipe the smug look off his face permanently, and another shiver of disgust ran through her at the feel of his close proximity. Was that rotting smell her imagination, or was it him?

Kipling drank her discomfort like an elixir as he leaned close to her ear. “He might be interested in keeping you alive for now, but don’t imagine that it will last once you’re no longer of use to him. When that time comes, I’ll be waiting for you… and your wife.” He kept his voice deliberately low so that only she could hear him but as he moved back and retreated past arms’ length, he resumed his normal volume. “I have my orders and we will get to them momentarily. If I were you, I would not be so eager to see me at work.”

Myka swallowed, choosing to focus on the here and now, not on some possible future date when she may or may not be seen as expendable. “What do you propose we do while we wait for you to grow tired of the sound of your own voice?” she pushed again. “Though I doubt we have an eternity to wait.” Again, she watched his eyes darken and narrow but this time he recovered swiftly.

The reanimated agent perched on a box and leaned forward so that he was looking directly up into wary, green eyes. “You think yourself so clever. You think that all of your preparation, years of training your brood and building your tiny army, that somehow it will all amalgamate into the security you want so desperately for your beloved family.” He watched a flicker of uncertainty pass over her expression and counted it a victory. “It’s all so meaningless. Their best line of defence is you and Wells, but you’re here, chasing another false hope, leaving them vulnerable in your absence.”

The regent swallowed the fear that swam up from her stomach and tried to persuade herself that he had no reason to tell the truth. “Stop boring me and make sense,” she scoffed.

“Oh, you know it makes sense. I see it in your eyes; a plea for lies where you hear truth.” He canted his head to one side, considered his options for a second before deciding that this was too good an opportunity to waste. “They do not always understand his vision – those plebeians who claim devotion to him. Inevitably, the overzealous amongst them will believe that they can win favour with large gestures. They assume that death of the enemy solves every problem.” Here, he paused for effect, ensuring that she was paying attention to the words that would follow. “They assume that they will be rewarded when they bring him the heathen… prince’s… head,” he jeered, drawing the words out for the best effect and savouring the dawning horror in her expression.

She lunged at him wildly, rage fuelling her as she punched him once, twice, and then found her arms restrained by the two guards. “You will not touch him!”

Kipling laughed as he recovered from her attack and stepped toward where she was being held. “My dear, _I_ have no intention of being anywhere near your unnatural offspring.” He flicked a piece of her hair from her face. “From what I hear though, it would not matter if I did; someone already has him in their sights.”

Myka felt her knees weaken and gave up all pretence that she was unaffected by his words. “You… you said that he – your boss – that he doesn’t want us hurt. Not yet. So, wouldn’t he want you to let me go?” Her only concern now was her son and she wasn’t above begging if she thought it would help.

“Yes, I am to release you when I have finished with you.” He retreated behind a stack of crates, smiling to himself as he took his time retrieving the item that Chapman had given him. “But first,” he reappeared with a box in hand. One that appeared very similar to the one Myka had seen earlier, only this one was smaller. “A little something to slow you down.”

Recognising that it was an artefact, the regent renewed her struggles against the guards either side of her, but they were strong and were not giving her any opportunity to move. Not even an inch. “What is that? I thought you said he didn’t want me to be hurt.”

“This will not hurt you,” Kipling responded with a tone that held very little genuine feeling. “Not physically at least. He is not ready to commence battle yet – he has plans to put into motion first and needs Miss Wells to be distracted – so he instructed me to introduce you to this.” He jiggled the box as if to torment her with it. “This trinket will take your mind back to a point in your life when your confidence, convictions, your sense of hope and faith, were crushed by someone you loved. Someone you trusted.” As he reached into the box and brought the item closer to the brunette, he felt as if he was finally getting the revenge he deserved. He felt sure that his arch rival would be that special someone to the younger Agent Bering. _My gift to you, Miss Wells._ “The best part?” he whispered. “Every memory you made since that point will be erased. You may not even remember that you have a son, let alone recall your sudden need to run to his rescue.”

Myka felt her world drop into the pit of her stomach like an anvil. She knew exactly which moment he was talking about, though he could only have guessed at it. Warehouse 2, Egypt. He was right; she would not even remember that she had children. And Helena? As the artefact neared her skin, she prayed that her wife would find the strength and belief to persevere through what was to come.

_I love you,_ she thought, hoping that those words would find the inventor.

* * * * *

**Near Renmark, Australia – Thursday afternoon.**

Rushing quickly and quietly through the bowels of the labyrinthine building seemed to take forever from Helena’s point of view. She held desperately onto the residual feeling of love that had reached her from Myka but couldn’t help worrying about the sudden emptiness she now felt from her wife’s end. Glancing at her hand for the thousandth time, she took solace in the fact that there was still a visible connection between them, the gold and green strands still flowing to and from her rings, but it was faint and growing fainter.

“That’s the exit, ma’am,” Dill informed the regent and sped up to follow her out into the courtyard where they’d left their vehicle.

Evidence of a fight littered the hard-packed dirt; scuff marks evidenced where feet had trampled the ground and the bodies of three guards sat, tied and propped up against a container. These things held no interest for the inventor though, who immediately homed in on the image of her wife. Myka was up and moving, a fact that filled HG’s heart momentarily with joy, but as she jogged closer, she noticed that something was wrong, and her forward motion slowed as heated words found her from across the courtyard.

“I won’t ask you again, who are you and where am I?” Myka demanded in her hardest, no-nonsense tone. “Where is HG Wells?”

Helena watched as the eyes of the two specialists sought her. She recognised the anger in her wife’s tone, but beneath it there was a clear note of fear, confusion and hurt. To her ears at least. Several questions came to mind as she assessed the situation, but one stuck out amongst the others: what had happened to her wife? Cautiously she moved forward until she was sure that the brunette would hear her voice, but she retained a respectful distance; she had a horrible gut feeling regarding the source of the anger in her wife’s tone.

“Myka?” HG said carefully.

Agent Bering whipped around, a tesla in her hand that she pointed directly at the dark-haired betrayer. “You! What the hell have you done with Pete? If you’ve hurt him, I swear… I’ll have you back in bronze so fast…” She stumbled over her words, her emotions overpowering her.

Myka couldn’t understand what was happening around her and she hated feeling out of control. She remembered feeling elated. She, Pete and HG had triumphed over Warehouse 2’s deadly traps and puzzles, their first big mission together was a success, and in the back of her mind, she’d begun to plan all the ways she would show Helena how she felt about _them._ Now, all that played on her mind was the look in those beautiful, dark eyes as she stared down the barrel of a home-made weapon and saw a stranger instead of the woman she loved.

“You played us!” she shouted across the unfamiliar space between them, unknowingly mirroring the words she’d shouted at Pete after they’d both regained consciousness. “You played **me**!”

Helena swallowed the tears that sat heavily in her throat. The echo of emotions was faint but she felt enough to understand the bone-deep ruin that filled the other regent.  “Darling…”

“Don’t!” Myka screamed, her voice breaking but strong with the force or her ire. “Don’t you dare! Call off your dogs and tell me: where – am – I?” she asked insistently, each word punctuated with a gesture of her tesla.

Not knowing how else to calm the situation, the inventor nodded and hoped that her expression appeared sincere enough. She had to keep a clear head. She needed to get them home. She couldn’t burden herself with guilt and sorrow, no matter how much her heart was breaking. “We’re in Australia. You and I came here to retrieve an artefact. These people,” she gestured to the backup team, “work for Claudia.”

Myka’s eyes projected confusion and for several seconds, she just waited as if anticipating a punchline. “Australia? You… Where’s Pete?” _This can’t be right,_ Myka thought fiercely. _It has to be a trick._

How could HG have transported her from Egypt to Australia, to a dusty compound in the middle of nowhere, without her knowledge? Did she have access to a private jet? What airline would allow her to transport an unconscious woman without checking for medical credentials? Did Helena have faked documents for that too? Was that part of her plan? She studied features that held nothing but openness and sincerity and hated them.

“Pete’s at home,” Helena answered calmly.

The lost woman seethed. “I don’t believe you.”

The tesla in Myka’s hand trembled. She glanced around at the four strangers in their combat gear and imagined her fallen idol at the head of some military force who were planning to take control of the Warehouse. While adrenaline surged through her, she could tell that her body was tired and dehydrated. An ache at her temple prompted inquisitive fingers and she pulled a hand away from her head with the residues of drying blood.

Blood wasn’t what caught her attention though. Two gold bands surrounded her third finger and she turned her hand over to find an engagement ring nestled beside a wedding band. “What…?” She looked up to find that the inventor had ventured closer and then noticed the matching set on HG’s ring finger. “What are you playing at?” Her hands were shaking again and tears began to fill her vision.

Helena knew that she had to try to reach her wife quickly – they were not safe lingering in this hostile place. Who knew what would happen if Chapman decided that he didn’t want to let them go after all? But she needed to tread carefully. Myka was clearly stuck in some point in the past and HG dreaded to think which awful memory had the brunette trapped. Though she didn’t want to think about it, her lover’s innocent confusion stared back at her from the archives of Warehouse 2.

“Myka,” HG tried again. “We’re not safe here. We need to…”

Ignoring the inventor’s attempted warning, Myka stormed forward, the tesla dropping to her side as she brought her offending hand up to head height and thrust the rings into the Brit’s vision. “Explain these.”

Helena hesitated then sighed. “We’re married,” she admitted. She could feel the situation rapidly falling apart and the twisting in her gut intensified with each tense minute that passed.

Around the truck, Delta team watched anxiously, waiting to see how the Victorian would handle her wife and wondering whether they should intervene. Their faces held a mixture of shock and concern. Having spent all morning with the couple and having heard tales of their adventures – the artefacts that they had only managed to acquire through their flawless working and personal relationships – they could barely believe that the infamous couple had ever been this antagonistic toward each other.

An expectant, noiseless force descended on the area. Agent Bering’s mind was still working around the word ‘married’ while Helena grew more and more impatient and desperate. “Myka, please. We must leave!”

Shaking her head of the fantasy that she’d been nurturing, the brunette scrambled back and forced some space between her and Agent Wells. “I’m not going anywhere with you! Fool me once…” She holstered the tesla in her pocket and grabbed at her rings with her right hand. Hot, angry tears filled her vision but she barely noticed them as she forced the bands of gold from her finger and tossed them into the dirt at her ex-lover’s feet. “I will not let you fool me again.” She threw the Brit one final look of disgust, turned on her heel and marched with determination in the direction of the main gate, ignoring the desolation she left in her wake.

“Ma’am?” Dex prompted from his position behind the distraught regent. “We can’t let her wander off on her own.”

HG felt every inch of her as if it was filled with shards of stabbing ice. One arm curled around her stomach as if to try to keep all the pieces of her from falling apart, while her right hand reached for her weapon and aimed it at her wife’s rapidly retreating form. She didn’t have much choice; it was for Myka’s own good. Yet, as she willed herself to pull the trigger, she hesitated to return to the moment that she’d shot her lover back in Egypt. Never – she’d told herself – never again will you knowingly hurt her. The tesla shook so much in her grip and her vision was so blurry that she could barely see her target, and when an arch of electricity travelled the distance between them, she cried out in surprise.

Myka’s form toppled and Helena was running before the brunette even touched the ground. Careful hands wrapped around limp limbs and drew them closer, protecting the prone figure from further harm. Some distant part of her managed to heed the voices that encouraged her to carry the body to the truck where too many hands helped them into the back seat.

Dex’s voice was almost constant for a while as he contacted his superiors and made arrangements for the two regents. On autopilot, HG followed instructions to address her dishevelled appearance and eventually found herself in her hotel room, watching as one of the crew deposited her unconscious wife on their bed. She felt a lingering figure by the door and turned woodenly to look at him.

“I thought you might want to look after these, Ma’am. For when she remembers.” He dropped two lumps of metal in her hand and moved to the door. “I’ll be close by, if you need assistance.”

Helena nodded listlessly and sank into a chair as soon as the door closed behind him. For several minutes, she stared down at the items in her hand. Myka’s rings. Dormant now – their lustrous glow dead, unresponsive – a reflection of the current state of their marriage. Fingers closed tightly around them and Helena revelled in the pain of metal and stone cutting into her flesh as her other hand stifled the keening sound of despair that clambered up from the depths of her soul.

* * * * *

**Boulder, Colorado – Thursday morning.**

Fredrick paced his bedroom floor, grumbling to himself about his sister’s mad power trip.

After their afternoon at the zoo, they’d arrived home just in time to send Catherine to bed and then she’d given him a weak explanation of her reasons for wanting to keep them out of the house for the day. He’d tried to argue but she was resolute, and he’d retreated to his room with a renewed sense that she was hiding something serious.

He’d sulked for half an hour before deciding that he deserved to know more and snuck from his room with the intention of discovering what that ‘more’ was. He’d found them in the garden and managed to run silently back upstairs so that he could open the bathroom window a crack and eavesdrop on their conversation.

_“… don’t want them to worry unnecessarily.” Christina’s voice rose from below._

_“Fredrick is old enough to understand,” Eleanor had countered. “But it is ultimately your decision, dear.”_

_“He should be able to just enjoy being a kid for a bit longer,” she’d argued back._

They’d talked about whether he should be privileged to more information or whether he was still too young. Eleanor had even reminded her great-granddaughter of the issues that Myka and Helena had chosen to keep from her, reminding her of the frustration she’d felt, but Christina was quick to argue that her mothers’ reasons were still relevant, even if she hadn’t liked them at the time.

Freddy appreciated the fact that his sister was looking out for him. At least, deep, deep down he appreciated it. Mostly, on the surface, he was just frustrated by her insistence that she needed to treat him like a child. Had he not proven that he could be trusted? Out of spite, he wanted to sneak out of the house and visit his friends anyway. It was a weekly arrangement that his parents agreed with him at the start of the school year. _They_ had given him the benefit of the doubt and trusted him to be responsible. Why couldn’t Tina do the same?

With a huge sigh, he flopped back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling. The bus would arrive soon and he knew he needed to make a decision. Whatever he decided now was what he would do at the end of school; he didn’t want to spend the whole day lost in deliberation. It would serve Christina right if he didn’t come home and she had to worry about him, but that would hardly prove to her that he was responsible and mature enough to share in her concerns. And what if she wasn’t just being paranoid? She did have a sixth sense about these things sometimes. Scaring her would be satisfying but it was not worth his health or life.

“It’s so boring being responsible sometimes,” he mumbled to himself in defeat as he made his mind up to come straight home. _If she’s wrong though, she’s going to owe me!_

He let that last thought comfort and amuse him as he grabbed his jacket and backpack before wandering off down the stairs. He almost made it to the kitchen, where he intended to grab a snack for later, but a voice called him into the living room. He considered ignoring her again, still holding onto his anger, but again, reason gave him pause.

“What?” he huffed and crossed his arms over his chest as he stood in the doorway. He wasn’t going to be nice to her just because he’d decided to adhere to her unreasonable demands. “Want to tell me I can’t go to school now? Shall I live in a bubble until our moms are home?”

Christina smiled sadly. “I deserved that,” she conceded. “I know the bus will be here soon, so I’ll make this quick. Close the door,” she asked and patted the seat beside her.

Intrigued, Fredrick pulled the door to and tossed his bag next to it. Seeing the look on his sister’s face, he felt sure that she’d finally caved and was going to explain her odd behaviour. Suddenly, all the hostility he was stubbornly holding onto faded away. “What’s going on?” he asked gently.

“I didn’t want you to have to worry, but I think someone’s watching us. Grandma Elle made a good point about the possibility of you going off in a teenage huff because I practically grounded you for no reason, and I guess I finally realised that you’d be better off seeing danger around every corner than thinking there was none at all.” She ran a hand through her hair and Freddy was reminded of their Mum. “Not that I **know** there’s something to worry about, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, right?”

“Yeah,” he agreed readily and revisited a forgotten feeling of unease. “Why do you think someone’s watching us?”

“Good question,” she sighed. “A gut feeling? It’s been building for a couple of weeks, but only since Mum and Ma left has it really hit me.”

 “So how come you haven’t got us all on lockdown? Why isn’t Tommy camped out on the porch with his bow?” he teased half-heartedly.

She chuckled and shoulder bumped him. Hard as it was to believe, she actually felt a lot better now that her brother knew the truth. “He called in his team, but together we thought it’d be best to pretend that we don’t suspect anything. The Alphas are out there, keeping an eye on us. Ace will be at Cat’s school all day and Ark at yours. I’ve got Thomas with me and Aggie’s watching the house.”

“Ok, cool,” he replied and nodded calmly.

Christina watched him carefully, waiting for the freak out. “That’s it? Just ‘ok, cool’?”

“Yep,” he smiled the dorkiest smile he could manage and (taking a page out of Uncle Pete’s book) feigned injury when she smacked his shoulder. “About half an hour ago, I was royally pissed off at you, but now stuff makes sense and you’re just doing your best, right? So, ok.” He shrugged and stood up. “I should probably get going before I miss the bus.”

“Sure,” the young woman agreed reluctantly. “Watch yourself, alright?”

“Don’t worry. My life will not be worth living if I get myself hurt before the ‘rents get back. Can you imagine? I **will** have to live in a bubble!” He joked but they both knew that he wasn’t far wrong. As much as they’d tried to mellow out over the years, their mothers still drilled safety and caution into their heads on a regular basis.

Watching her brother leave with a smile on his face gave Christina a sense of satisfaction that she’d not expected. Had she been that mature at his age? She remembered the exasperation she’d felt at having two siblings who didn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘privacy’ and sometimes wished that she was allowed the same freedoms as them. Perhaps she was already forgetting and underestimating how much of the world teens actually understood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erm... don't kill me?


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're rapidly approaching the end of part one now. Just two more chapters to go after this one. How's the build up going for everyone? I'm trying to picture you all hanging onto the edge of your seats. (At least, that's what I'm hoping for!) ;-D  
> Thank you for any kudos you've dropped.

** Chapter Eight **

**Renmark, Australia – Thursday afternoon**

Myka woke to an empty room and jumped off the bed as quickly as her pounding head would allow. Holding onto a wall for support, she scanned her surroundings and tried to orientate herself once more. _Where the hell has she taken me now?_ She thought angrily and with more than a little bit of fear.

Helena had shot her again. In the back this time. _And she expects me to trust her!_

Without anyone else around, she found her thoughts twisting and whirling, searching for answers and explanations. So far as she could remember, they’d spent the previous evening wrapped around each other’s bodies, giving and taking pleasure equally, and today Helena had accompanied them into the heart of Warehouse 2, allowing Valda to sacrifice himself, almost losing herself in harrowing trials, before knocking her and Pete out.

Why?

How could the inventor have duped her so easily? She felt used, rejected and heartbroken. All the hours she and Helena had spent in her room at the B&B (and in various other places around the house) and not once had she contemplated the possibility that her lover was plotting against her. There was something – a tortured sadness that lay in the depths of dark eyes but she had naturally assumed that they would be able to talk about the inventor’s loss once they settled into a relationship. Every moment that they spent together was etched into her memory and now, during every conscious second, those thoughts plagued her mind.

Once most of her dizziness had subsided, Agent Bering began to investigate the room. Two small suitcases sat side by side in one corner. Two coats hung on the back of the door, accompanied by two handbags. Two folders – the type she was used to using in an investigation – sat ready on the dressing table. She ignored (for now) more evidence to support Helena’s claim that went with the rings. She couldn’t even _think_ the word that implied a closer, permanent relationship. _Why would she make out that we’re… together like that?_

A battle raged in the back of her mind between what she knew and what the evidence was pointing to. She didn’t believe… Couldn’t believe anything the inventor told her at this point. Right? If she was capable of such deception before… And Myka had believed then so completely, as if part of her soul knew that the Victorian could be trusted and belonged at the Warehouse – with her. To have that belief so completely destroyed, it was tearing her apart and she wasn’t ready to make herself vulnerable again so quickly.

On the other hand, the evidence hadn’t escaped her notice. Though still strikingly beautiful, Helena showed obvious signs of aging and, as she passed a mirror, she saw lines and greys in her own features that hadn’t been there the last time she’d looked. They were older. Possibly by a decade or more. Enough time for apologies, forgiveness and rebuilding their damaged relationship? She glanced at her left hand, flexed the fingers there and studied the patch of pale skin where she’d pulled the rings from her finger. A tan line – more evidence.

_I’ve been whammied,_ she rightly concluded, but the question remained: how was HG Wells involved?

Thinking that the files might tell her more, Myka approached the dressing table and flicked one open, ignoring the inventor’s name on the cover. An eyebrow rose as she found inside a note with her name on it. A quick flick back to the cover and a peek inside ‘her’ folder confirmed that Helena had left just the one missive. A rebellious lip tried to quirk into the beginnings of a smile and she beat it back. _It’s not cute,_ she insisted to the smitten adolescent inside of her. Opening the letter, she began to read:

_Myka,_

_These files contain everything we discovered regarding the artefact that brought us to Australia. During our investigation this afternoon, we were separated, and I believe that you were exposed to an artefact that returned you to a period in our personal history when we were most at odds. I am ashamed to acknowledge that there is more than one to choose from, but I imagine that your most recent recollections of me are those of our journey through Warehouse 2._

_That being true, you will naturally have no desire to take anything I have to say on faith alone. I have appraised Claudia of the situation and she is awaiting your call; your Farnsworth is in your case where you usually keep it._

_I will leave you to your own devices for as long as possible. However, we have a flight to catch to Adelaide at six and the another from Adelaide to Denver at eight this evening. I imagine that you are looking forward to setting foot on familiar ground, but I encourage you to discuss current circumstances with either Claudia or myself as many things have changed in the interim since our time in Egypt. I may not deserve your benevolence at present but there are others involved who are innocent in all of this mess and I know you would not wish for them to suffer by association._

_I will wait in the bar until such time that we must leave for the airport. Come and find me if you would like answers._

_Helena Wells-Bering_

Myka felt her hands shaking again and anger surged through her. She couldn’t help but question every instinctive thought that came to mind. _This is what she’s done to me,_ she thought viciously. _She’s made me question every little decision._ Could Helena’s words be true or were they all part of another elaborate plan, with her as the sacrificial pawn again?

She scanned the letter again, searching for hints of its author’s motivation. The words seemed to imply contrition, but she was reluctant to rely on any instinct she had with complete conviction. Alongside this, she found an intimate knowledge of her personal habits that went beyond the lustful connection they’d been indulging in; there was the understanding that Myka had every right to her mistrust, and compensations given to allow her to make her own discoveries, and then the gentle plea for her to learn all she could about their situation so that others wouldn’t get caught in the path of Myka’s justified ire.

Green eyes lingered over the last little line; three words that spoke volumes: Helena _Wells-Bering._ She balked at seeing ‘Wells’ first and hated the thrill of excitement that whispered from her gut. Dismissing the name and the confusion that it roused, Myka went back to the rest of the letter. If she took everything at face value, the HG Wells she had known had become a patient, more considerate version with a sense of responsibility over others. While she had believed that Helena was on their side, she had worried that the Brit was too focussed on adventure and excitement as opposed to helping people. Her habit of turning every conversation they had into flirting and innuendoes was something that she found endlessly attractive but worrying. Perhaps she should have tried harder to resist the pull of her libido and pushed for more serious conversations. She allowed the memories to tug at her conscience and felt guilt taking over for a fraction of a second.

_No, don’t make this your fault!_

Letting those words fuel her anger, she decided to consider the alternative: what if this _was_ all a set up?

Helena had tried to manipulate time once before. What if she’d spent a hundred years in bronze planning a way to travel further into the future instead of the past? What if she wanted to take over the Warehouse but also keep Myka by her side? Was that possible to achieve through time travel? It seemed unlikely.

Try as she might, nothing she could think of made sense if she wanted to paint the Brit as the villain she’d discovered. But it hurt too much to hope. She needed to talk to someone she trusted.

_Claudia. I need my Farnsworth._

* * * * *

**Boulder, Colorado – Thursday morning.**

Fredrick jogged towards the bus with his usual happy-go-lucky smile on his face. Now that he knew Christina’s concerns, he understood the need to appear to be getting on with his normal routine. Still, as he greeted his friends and climbed over one of them to grab a window seat, his gaze scanned the street, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

“Hey, Freddy,” Ethan, a short, freckly kid with a disproportionally long nose greeted him enthusiastically. “Guess what! I got a new character pack. We can try it out when you come over later. Aimee’s already bagsied the dwarven warrior, but there’s still elves, centaurs, humans and giants. I even have a dryad now!”

Fredrick pulled his gaze reluctantly from the window to listen to his friend and grinned at the excitement in Ethan’s tone before he was forced to give him the bad news. “Cool, but I’ll have to pick my character next week; I need to stay in tonight.” He shrugged at the disappointment behind muddy-brown eyes and immediately felt guilty. Would it really be so bad if he went out for a couple of hours? _Do you really want to find out?_ his conscience replied. “It sucks, I know, but Tina wants to do this whole ‘bonding thing’ while our moms are away and I said I’d be there. I think she just wants to distract Cat for a bit longer. It might be fun,” he shrugged again, like it wasn’t really a big deal.

“Shall I set up a character for you?” Ethan asked once he’d gotten over the let-down.

“Sure.”

“What race and class do you want?” the boy asked.

Freddy replied with relief, “Surprise me.”

A voice fell from a head above their seats and both lads glanced up to find a taunting grin. “Make him a skinny elf-girl,” a frizzy haired figure in beanie hat suggested.

Not the least bit phased, the young swimmer laughed. “Fine by me. I’ll see if I can romance the dryad,” he added and wiggled his eyebrows as Aimee whacked him on the head.

They continued to chat about the game, plan the following week’s campaign and tease one another until they arrived at school, had everything from their lockers and went their separate directions to class. Freddy settled into his seat in maths and resisted the temptation to gaze out of the window. He worked diligently and almost forgot about the possibility of spies… until lunch.

* * * * *

**Renmark, Australia -Thursday afternoon.**

Myka chose to sit on a chair rather than the bed and didn’t waste any time analysing why. She’d found her Farnsworth exactly where she always kept it when she travelled, in the topmost inner pocket of her carry-on bag – secure but easily accessible. As she pulled it out and opened it, she frowned. It looked different. Two new buttons stared back. Between them sat a post-it note with an arrow drawn in each direction, saying ‘for Pete’ and ‘for Claudia’. Deciding that she would ask about it later, she pressed the ‘Claudia’ button and waited. When the redhead’s face appeared on the screen she almost cried with relief. She hadn’t realised until this moment that she really needed the reassurance of a friendly face.

_“Hey, big sistah!”_ the caretaker greeted with her usual enthusiasm. _“Have you been randomly handling antiquies? You know that’s Pete’s job. We don’t need two of him!”_ she joked in her usual ‘this is awkward’ manner.

The brunette shook her head. “Claude, you know I love you, but I’m really not in a joking mood. What the hell is going on!?” she asked desperately.

_“What’s the last thing you remember?”_ the redhead replied as she gaged where she should start.

“Before I woke up in a truck, in Australia, with two strangers staring down at me?” she added defensively. “We were in Warehouse 2. Valda had sacrificed himself. Pete and I managed to cut the connection to Mrs Fredrick. We were celebrating and then HG shot us… She shot us, Claudia!” Myka added when her friend winced with not nearly enough shock.

_“I know, I know. I remember. I also remember how devastated you were and the time it took to get you to tap your heels and come home again. Which, by the way, HG helped with.”_ She watched the brunette roll her eyes and pushed on. _“Look, whatever you’ve been exposed to, it was obviously designed to wipe part of your memory. I don’t know why it took you back to Egypt, but maybe that’s part of its power too. I’m doing all the clicky-clicky, tappy-tappy I can, but it’ll take time before I can find anything. At this point, I don’t even know if anything like it has ever been in the Warehouse. I gotta be super-stealthy while I’m looking too.”_

Myka’s stubborn frown deepened into one of concern. “Why?”

_“Oh, right, duh!”_ The redhead hit herself in the head with the heel of her hand. _“Super villain on the horizon, spies in the Warehouse, the usual series finale Big Bad. We’ll get you up to speed, but first…”_

“You want me to trust her,” the agent surmised.

_“She_ is _your wife,”_ Claudia pointed out gingerly.

Tears pricked at the brunette’s eyes again. “How am I supposed to do that?”

_“Which?”_ the caretaker asked, confused.

“Any of it… The ‘wife’ thing?” That feeling of panic and confusion crept back into her thoughts and her eyes darted around the room. “I…” Her voice came out croaky and she swallowed to try to clear it. New thoughts were hitting her hard and fast now, and with each one, she became more overwhelmed. “I’ve been trying so hard not to think too far ahead, but I thought about the two of us and the future… What if she isn’t the villain I think she is and this isn’t part of her master plan, but it isn’t reality either? What if this is just all part of a fantasy that I’ve been whammied with?” She sucked in a few quick breaths. “Either way, Claude, she used me and I am… so far from ok with that.”

The redhead sighed and nodded. _“I can’t promise you that this isn’t all just in your mind._ I _know it’s real; I’ve dragged myself through enough crises of faith to believe that this really is my life. You’ve lost a lot of time though, Myka. Not much else you can do but push through the next little while and make your mind up as you go along.”_

The compassion in her friend’s voice helped to calm her wayward emotions and the simple start of a plan gave her a tiny sense of security. “I suppose you’d better tell me about my life then,” she said as she resigned herself to her present. “How much time have I lost?”

_“Starting with the big stuff, huh?”_ Claudia began with a nervous chuckle. _“It’s almost October… 2029.”_ She paused deliberately to give the regent time to absorb this bombshell and waited for a reaction.

Myka swallowed hard. “So much time,” she whispered. Glassy eyes disappeared behind tightly closed lids for several seconds before they opened with forced determination. “Carry on,” she responded simply and stole herself for the answers.

Over an hour later, Agent Bering’s head was spinning as she ended the call with Agent Donovan and slumped in her chair. _Regent Bering,_ she reminded herself. _And Claudia’s caretaker of Warehouse 14 now. I’m married, I live in Boulder and I have three children,_ she repeated in her mind, as if this would somehow make the facts more real.

How was she supposed to reconcile these polar opposite parts of her life? One minute, an agent on the cusp of disgrace for her terrible instincts, the next an unofficial regent with potential power over the future purpose of the Warehouse. One minute, a used-up lover of an egomaniacal mad-woman, the next a wife and mother of three. The worst part was, that she knew that Claudia had only touched the tip of the iceberg. How many more surprises should she expect?

Recalling Helena’s letter and the time limit imposed on her, Myka knew that she needed to learn as much as possible while she had time on her own. Grabbing her shoulder bag, she unzipped it and tipped the contents on the bed. She recalled a well-known saying: that you could learn a lot about a woman from the contents of her handbag. With that in mind, she was relieved to find that her habits had not changed much. The same essentials stared back at her: passport, notebook, pen, phone, tissues, purse, sunglasses/glasses, lipstick, a tiny tube of moisturiser, and of course, a pair of purple gloves. Momentarily forgetting her aversion to the bed, she picked up the purse, sat down and opened it.

The first thing she pulled out was her driver’s licence. Her photo was the standard non-smiling snap-shot, but even without the visual cue, she recognised happiness on her own face. The dates on all of her cards coincided with what Claudia had divulged, giving her no reason to doubt everything she’d been told so far. She was almost calm, just beginning to find headspace for these intangible additions to her life, and then she found the photos.

Having been folded into the back, as she released a catch, they tumbled out into a long strip consisting of half a dozen, double sided squares. The first was a photo-booth snap of her and Helena kissing. She was sitting in the inventor’s lap, hands held on either side of a pale face as she led their lips in a passionate dance. The Brit’s hands held onto her shoulders and she flushed, almost feeling the intensity of the embrace.

Below that were three individual shots: a young adult woman, a teenaged boy and a pre-teen girl. As a picture of those three and a final shot of all five of them followed at the bottom, Myka was forced to conclude that the three individuals were supposed to be her children.

She couldn’t quite get her head around the idea that she could have an adult daughter who looked so much like her and Helena. Either they were very selective when adopting, or she was missing a big piece of the puzzle. Staring at the photos didn’t help and it was only when she was interrupted by a knock at the door that she realised how much time had passed.

Knowing immediately who it had to be, she froze at first in panic and waited to see if her visitor would leave or enter without a summons. At the sound of a key card in the slot and the sight of the door handle moving, Myka held her breath.

The door opened slowly and the expected head of sleek (though now sprinkled with silver) black hair appeared from behind the barrier. Dark eyes searched the room and landed cautiously on wary green. “Myka,” Helena greeted the brunette, the word sounding like both a name and a prayer. “I wish I could give you more time to adjust, but we must leave soon.”

What was quickly becoming a habit, Myka ignored the inventor’s words and voiced her own thoughts instead. “How do we have an adult daughter who looks like us?”

Helena appeared to hesitate before she closed the door firmly behind her and took a seat on the lone chair. Her entire frame seemed to sag with the weight of the world and Myka wondered briefly whether the Victorian had slept at all. “You will have endless questions,” HG began as she gazed kindly into the younger regent’s eyes and chose her words carefully. “You have lost approximately seventeen years’ worth of memories. I cannot possibly satisfy all of your queries right now.” She licked her lips nervously as Myka’s gaze narrowed on her and then continued. “We will have a short time on the plane to Adelaide and eighteen hours between Adelaide and Denver for you to interrogate me as much as you like, but for now…” she reached out slowly and prized the photos from a stiff hand. She smiled sadly at the pictures and pointed at the youngest girl. “This is Catherine. She’s eleven, too much like me, according to you, and has an unhealthy obsession with mashed potato.”

Though Myka wanted to retain her anger at this woman, the more she watched, the more she realised that she was not staring at the fresh-from-bronze, chip-on-her-shoulder agent she’d known. This woman’s pain was not hidden behind a dozen masks. Helena was obviously trying hard not to break, but also wasn’t pretending to be unaffected. She watched a sad smile turn into a small chuckle and then held her breath as said lip wobbled slightly. Instinct wanted her to reach out, to comfort, but she held back. She told herself it was because of their imposed time limit, but a tiny, dark hurt found a morsel of satisfaction in the show and persuaded her not to interfere.

“Fredrick, or Freddy as you usually call him, is fourteen. He’s fairly quiet most of the time but he comes alive when he’s near water. He’s on the school swimming team and wants to win a scholarship to go to college in California, of all places,” she grumbled at the end, though it was clear from her expression that she was enormously proud.

“And the young woman?” Myka prompted, a little more kindly this time.

“You will recall her from the picture in my locket,” HG said after some hesitance.

The brunette’s look was one of disbelief. “Christina? The daughter you lost in 1899?”

Nodding as she took a long breath, the inventor confirmed, “The same.” She watched as Myka frowned for several seconds before eventually settling on wary curiosity. “Love… Myka,” she faltered. “Our lives appeared fantastical when we were merely two agents chasing down artefacts for a mystical building. Now, you are looking at our life together from the outside. I’m afraid that even the most minor events will appear inconceivable to you. Rest assured, I _will_ explain to the best of my ability, but we really must away. It was difficult enough leaving home, I am anxious to return. You will also have the benefit of Pete’s presence there,” she added as an incentive.

Having opened her mouth to respond with further questions, Myka slowly closed it and nodded. “Fine. Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Helena stood and with minimal sound, shrugged into her jacket, pulled her bag over her shoulder and picked up her case. She glanced at the facsimile of her wife and left.

* * * * *

**Boulder, Colorado – Thursday morning.**

The moment the front door closed behind her brother, Rupert Wells’ voice came, sounding warm and soothing from behind Christina, “Well done, flower.”

The young woman chuckled slightly as she turned to face her great-grandparents. “You were right,” she sighed. “He took it well and I feel better that he knows. You should have just told me to get on with it,” she joked.

“It was not our place,” Eleanor responded gently. “You need to find confidence in your abilities and we trusted that you would find a solution that you were comfortable with.”

Shapely brows drew together. “And if I’d chosen differently and he’d been hurt?” Christina asked, horrified.

An awkward silence permeated the air, both of the older regents appearing sheepish but resolute. Eleanor took a seat and gestured, as the young woman had earlier, for Christina to sit. “Dear, I realise that this prospect is appalling to you – the thought that your mistakes could result in your brother being hurt – but you will only learn that you are capable through your own means.”

Rupert watched the young woman’s frown darken and found a space to sit on the other side of her. He placed a hand on her forearm. “We had no way of knowing whether our advice would help or hinder. You know this modern world better than us and you have good instincts. You have no way of knowing whether your decisions will result in positive or negative outcomes. However, in choosing to act, you are paving your own way and will be less likely to find yourself at the whim of another. Remember though, you have people in your life who you can trust to support you. You are not alone.”

Christina felt the weight of the last couple of days settle on her shoulders and wrapped her arms around the sponge-cake-filled, old man, seeking comfort. The smidgeon of reprieve she felt in his arms lasted no more than a minute; the sound of footsteps descending the stairs broke through the calm moment and all three of the Wells family looked to the door as Thomas entered.

He took one look at his girlfriend’s features and paused as he seemed to regret what he was about to say. “Babe?” he called softly and ached as he watched her pull the pieces of herself back together.

Christina forced a smile. “I’m fine. What’s wrong?”

“Aggie spotted a guy in the woods half a click from your house,” he told them. “He’s not the first wanderer she’s come across out there, but she says he wasn’t dressed for hiking and he seemed unhappy about finding her there. It could be a coincidence, but…”

“If she can give us a description, we can keep an eye out for him,” his girlfriend responded, confidence and determination filling her voice.

“We can do better than that.” He stepped towards the trio and showed them an image on his phone. “She managed to get her body cam set up before he appeared so has footage. I’ve already sent a screen-shot to Claudia. She’s searching for an ID and any digital footprints that he might have left in the area.”

The young woman nodded and sucked in a lungful of air. “I didn’t really want to be right about any of this, but I think we have to assume that one, if not all of us are in danger. It’s time to let my moms know what might be happening. Hopefully, they will be close to wrapping up their mission.”

“It’s still going to take them at least a day to get home,” her boyfriend reminded her. “There’s not a lot that they’ll be able to do.”

“I know, but if I’ve learned anything this week, it’s that we deserve to know when the people we love are in danger.” She glanced around, looking for the Farnsworth that she’d had first thing that morning, but couldn’t see it anywhere. “Gramps, Grams, have you seen the Farnsworth?”

Both former regents shook their heads. “I haven’t seen it since Catherine was examining it this morning and asking whether she could call your parents before she left for school.”

Christina pursed her lips while trying not to jump to conclusions. She suggested that they spend some time searching for it, but when twenty minutes passed and they still couldn’t find it, she called them back to the living room and sighed deeply. “I think we can all guess what’s happened to it.” Her great-grandparents exchanged a look – probably sharing a memory of her inventive mother as a child. Thomas appeared cross though and she reached towards him to take his hand. “She probably took it to feel closer to them, and to be fair to her, she doesn’t know that we’re on the edge of a crisis,” she tried to console him.

“In the meantime, we’re stuck without our best means of communication,” he grumbled back. At his girlfriend’s lingering gaze, he sighed too. “It’s not the end of the world though.”

“We’ll still have Uncle Pete’s, when he gets here.” Christina pulled her phone from her pocket and ensured that the signal scrambler was active before checking her messages. “I’ll see if I can get them on their cells,” she added as she stepped away from the trio.

“Thomas,” Eleanor addressed the young man. “Do you need anything from us?”

Christina let the voices of her boyfriend and great-grandparents fade into the background and wandered across the room. She found a message from her Mum to say that she and Myka were on their way home and breathed a small sigh of relief; the time difference had made it difficult to keep in contact and thought she hadn’t originally wanted to worry them, she had hoped to reach them in order to share her concerns and ask if they could cut their journey short. The inventor sounded tired and empty, like she’d been pulled through the wringer and needed a weekend at a spa.

As the message ended, she heard her boyfriend’s words in her head and hesitated. What could her mothers do from inside a plane, besides panic and worry? She decided that there wasn’t much point in calling back yet, and promised herself that she wouldn’t leave the call for too much longer. She hung by the front window for a minute to stare out at the street and gather her thoughts. As she hung up the phone, she imagined murderous eyes staring back at her from every shadow. Though a part of her was relieved to be on the cusp of reassurance (knowing that she wasn’t being an attention-sucking, crazy person) for the most part, she was just hoping that the weekend would arrive and her current fears would appear, in hind sight, blown out of proportion.

* * * * *

**Australian airspace – Thursday evening.**

Mrs and Mrs Wells-Bering made their journey to Adelaide mostly in silence. Although HG had given her a green light to ask questions, Myka didn’t know where to begin, so she used the time to organise her thoughts and left the inventor to gaze morosely out of the window. With her thoughts still in turmoil, she took little notice of her companion’s misery, choosing to ignore the little voice in her head that wanted her to reach out and offer comfort, and concentrated on her own needs instead. She did take note of the hand that gripped tightly to the chain of a necklace and logged it as something to keep an eye on; early on she had realised that the action was one of the inventor’s ‘tells’ when she felt uncomfortable.

They still had almost an entire day before they touched down in Denver and she knew that she needed a plan in place before that happened. If what the inventor and Claudia said was true, with her memories intact, she would have returned with Helena… her wife… to the home they shared with their children. Could she still do that? How would she behave? What would Helena expect of her? What would the children expect from her? She might be ‘mother’ to them, but as far as _she_ was concerned, they were strangers. She had no idea what their routine was, what they were and weren’t permitted to do, what they enjoyed or hated… So many unknowns. What if she yelled at them for running in the house and found out that she normally let them race around like lunatics?

Though she realised that her last thought was highly unlikely, the fact remained that she was not yet comfortable with the idea of being thrown into a domestic situation where she was unprepared for her role. She recalled the Brit telling her that Pete was at home and wondered what ‘home’ entailed. It was this question which prompted her as soon as they were in the air again, leaving behind the land down-under.

“Earlier,” she began, somewhat startling the other woman, who sat with her eyes closed and a frown marring her tired features. “You said that Pete was at home.”

“Yes,” HG answered shortly.

“Where does he live?” Myka asked in a similarly minimal fashion.

_So, it begins,_ Helena thought, having wondered how long it would take before the brunette broke her silence and demanded answers. Since she was trying so hard to keep her emotions under check, her voice came out rather more robotic that she liked. “He and his family live in Boulder, a short walk from our house.” Seeing the next question and hesitation in those familiar and foreign green orbs, HG continued without a prompt. “He and his partner, Lila, have a daughter and a son, respectively similar in age to our Fredrick and Catherine.”

Myka seemed to think on this for a long time before muttering a quiet ‘oh’.

“They would find room for you if you would prefer to stay with Pete,” HG added with more feeling. She bit the inside of her cheek and swallowed her sorrow at the idea of her wife choosing to be anywhere but with her and their children. “Alternatively, your sister has a spare bedroom, as do my grandparents.” She smiled just a little at those last words and waited for the expected reaction.

Eyebrows rising with disbelief, Myka turned and then hit the inventor with an expression that said, ‘you’d better not be messing with me’. “ _Your_ grandparents?”

Helena nodded, her smile now gone. “The entire story is entangled with our history, our future, the Warehouse and our children. In short though, unbeknownst to me, they were regents of Warehouse 12, travelled to America to help found Warehouse 13, and used an artefact to allow them to reappear in the twenty-first century to offer us assistance.”

“Assistance with what?” Myka responded instantly.

“The answer to that is largely unknown,” HG answered and then shrugged when her wife threw another disbelieving look her way. “We are in a cold war with someone who wants ultimate control of the Warehouse and have been for some time. The Warehouse is playing a long game and intended for us to be pawns in its machinations before either of us were even born.”

“You’re messing with what I can believe,” Myka noted sullenly. “Who is this _someone_?”

Helena glanced around. They’d been conversing quietly, both familiar with protecting the secrecy of their lives, but she needed to double check to make sure that no one was hanging on their every word. “His name is Lloyd Spenser-Chapman Jr, not at all pretentious, but that’s only his current appellation. Over two millennia, since the founding of the Warehouse, he’s been inhabiting the bodies of his sons, retaining life while plotting to take over.”

“How has he managed to do that for so long without agents or regents finding out?” Myka wondered aloud.

“Some regents are in his pocket. As he so kindly related to me this afternoon.” She said this as an aside and then, at Myka’s startled look, added, “We did not know that he would be in Australia when we set out to search for our curiosity.”

She took time to explain the function of the artefact that they’d come for, what she was attempting to do at home in her lab, and why they’d decided to risk the long journey personally. She saw criticism and calculation in her companion’s eyes as she mentioned her current invention and experiments but decided to soldier on. Though when her story led into her being unable to escape, concern began to fill green eyes and she couldn’t help feeling gratified at that. Somewhere inside Myka was still a person who cared for her.

“He attempted to convince me that his intentions are benign. Though when I made it clear that I wasn’t interested in supporting his efforts, he… Well, I don’t think I can rule out the possibility of him being possessed by a dark entity. Like as happened with Walter Sykes and Carlo Collodi’s bracelet,” Helena added, aware that she was opening yet another bucket of worms. It was going to be a long journey home and, like clinging to a security blanket, she held desperately onto the fact that Myka was at least willing to talk to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews are greatly appreciated.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting tense now!

** Chapter Nine **

**Boulder, Colorado – Thursday afternoon.**

Christina and Thomas both made arrangements to get notes for their lectures and stayed at the Wells-Bering house to gather with friends and family for a strategy meeting. The young woman paced impatiently as the morning wore on and she waited for Pete to arrive with his Farnsworth. She thought about driving to Catherine’s school to pick up the one the girl had stolen but thought better of it. She remembered her boyfriend’s words; what could her parents do when they were stuck on a plane, hours away from getting home? If having the Farnsworth close by gave her sister a sense of comfort, then it was worth the wait. She could talk to everyone first and then call when she had a plan.

It was close to ten by the time they were all congregated. If someone _was_ watching the house now, they would know that the family were aware of something out of the ordinary. Christina tried not to let it worry her. Rick and Cat were both safe at school and her mothers would be home by the end of the following day. Still, she fidgeted as she sat at the head of the table and waited for everyone to settle themselves.

“So, what do we know?” Pete asked from one side of the dining table. “I haven’t had any hinky vibes yet,” he added in his own defence.

Filling the rest of the table, Thomas, Steve and Artie looked to the eldest Wells-Bering child for direction. Though Christina hadn’t formally invited the latter two, she was relieved to have them there. The moment they caught wind of her suspicions, they cancelled any plans they might have had and charged on over. With Steve and Jason living in Castle Rock, just south of Denver (having moved from Golden to be closer to the bookshop), and Vanessa having set up her practice in Broomfield where she and Artie now lived, they were all conveniently close for emergencies such as these.

Rupert and Eleanor sat opposite, both appearing attentive as they waited for their great-granddaughter to take the lead. It was like leaving Helena to her own devices all over again, but without knowing what would eventually come from any mistakes. They had to trust that Christina could handle the situation and be there in case she needed help. When the young woman struggled to start though, Eleanor stood and reached to squeeze a tense shoulder.

“It is never easy to step into another’s shoes and carry the burden of their responsibilities, particularly when the other person is a parent,” the sprightly Victorian began in praise, hoping to chase away any doubt that Christina might have in herself. “And even more so when those parents’ shoes are as big as Helena and Myka’s. This young lady has risen to the challenge and made some difficult decisions in the process.” She removed her gaze from the guests gathered at the table and turned it on the young woman. “Though we cannot yet know the outcome, you have carried the mantle to the best of your ability and I know that your mothers will be beyond proud. You can do this, my dear.”

Blushing at the unexpected speech but feeling bolstered by Eleanor’s words, Christina dove right in. “My mothers are on their way back. Mum said in her message that they have the artefact, but I get the feeling that they ran into some trouble on their mission.” She let that sink in for a moment, looked nervously around at the assembled group before taking a deep breath. “I’ve been getting a feeling of being watched, on and off, for a couple of weeks now. I really didn’t think much of it until not long after my moms left.”

Artie opened his mouth as if to say something – his expression suggesting that he wanted to grumble about her reticence – but he hesitated and shook his head. “What is being done about it?”

“Thomas called his team, so alpha squad are here. Ace is watching Cat, Ark is at Freddy’s school, Aggie is on the house and Ant is with me,” she gestured to Thomas and shared a shy smile with him.

“You’re sure?” the aging ex-director asked gently. He didn’t know what extra senses she possessed or how useful they were, but he trusted Pete’s. If Agent Lattimer was unaware of a danger threatening them, could it really be so bad, or was the young woman just feeling the absence of her parents? Experience told him not to dismiss either possibility. “You’ve exhausted all other options?”

Christina hesitated and looked to the older couple for reassurance. Eleanor smiled and nodded but didn’t offer any further input. “My priority is to treat this as a real threat until my mothers come home. Then we can decide whether I’m just being paranoid or if I’ve somehow accidentally run into an artefact. But Aggie does have footage of a suspicious presence in the forest not far from the house. I figured, and so did Thomas, that it’s better to be over-cautious. Don’t you think?”

“I trust you, CJ,” Pete piped up as he reached for a handful of peanuts. “I’ve been under the influence of paranoid delusions before and you seem sane enough to me, girl.”

Christina relaxed slightly and smiled. “Thanks, Uncle Pete.”

Artie nodded and offered an unapologetic raise of an eyebrow. “You might be right, though I think you probably wish that you’re wrong. It doesn’t hurt to look at all angles. You have a plan?”

“If someone is watching us, then we want to flush them out and, ideally, find out what they want. I feel like, whoever this person is, that they’ve been waiting to take advantage of my mothers’ absence.” She reached for a folded piece of paper and opened it to reveal a map of her house and the surrounding area. Another map showed a wider picture of Boulder and the woodland. “This is where Aggie spotted her suspect,” she explained and pointed to a thicket of trees beyond the boundary of the Wells-Bering property. “I thought it might be best to have the team do reconnaissance unless it’s necessary to step in. I’m not sure we have the authority to take him in when we can’t prove that he’s a threat,” Christina pointed out.

Pete shrugged. “Can’t we just use my old Secret Service clearance? It’s always worked in the past.”

“And suppose we get tangled up with the local authorities?” Artie challenged the younger man. “We’re not supposed to be associated with the Warehouse any longer. We can’t rely on Claudia to be able to smooth things over. We’d risk breaking everyone’s cover.”

Pete rolled his eyes. “Always with the negative waves, man!” he responded with his best Odd-Ball impression.

Christina swallowed a chuckle and coughed into her hand. She loved her grand-pa Artie. He’d cautioned and guided her hand through many trials and taught her how to play the piano, but nothing was every right without her Uncle Pete around to remind her that life could still be fun, even when things seemed dire.

“We need to learn as much as we can about why he’s here. What does he want? Is he alone? Let’s wait until Claudia has something useful to tell us and everyone is present and accounted for before we accost perfect strangers.” She lifted a hand to the back of her neck and adopted a sheepish expression. “Let’s also hope that I am just having a really bad dream.”

* * * * *

It was Holly Brown who knocked Freddy’s thoughts off kilter and drew him away from the prospect of food. He was on his way to the canteen when he saw her. He was running late himself, having stayed behind in chemistry to help clean up after an experiment got a little out of hand (he was used to seeing experiments go awry), so the paths around the science building were fairly quiet and she was easy to spot in her stylish glasses, pencil skirt and yellow jacket. He tried not to look too obvious as he watched her and tried to find the words that he would say if he ever plucked up the courage to talk to her.

When she paused beside the off-limits area behind the kitchens, glanced around briefly and then stepped out of view, it took him a few seconds before he began to wonder whether something more sinister was going on. Picking up the pace, he reached the narrow path between buildings, scanned the area and jumped forward as he spotted the heel of a shoe sticking out from behind a dumpster.

There was no time for his mothers’ cautions to register, no time for him to think on his actions and consider the possibilities of a trap. Someone was in danger and he reacted, but as he found Holly’s body lying on the ground and moved towards it, his senses finally kicked in. _Stupid!_ he thought as he felt the presence of another person behind him.

* * * * *

“Yes!” Hugh cheered for himself once he was safely back inside his hideaway.

He had the boy! The thrill of excitement that passed through his system was bordering on vulgar but he didn’t care to examine the feeling too closely, and even if he had, he would have found blood-lust to be an entirely acceptable emotion in such circumstances. He had been patient. He had stalked and hunted. He had pounced and caught. Now, there was just the kill.

Not knowing the boy’s tolerance (and he was well built for his age), Hugh had not skimped on the drug he used to tranquilize his prey. A cautious, cold voice in the back of his mind wanted to finish the job now – to put a gun to the teen’s temple and pull the trigger so he could be gone long before anyone even knew to look for him. But the hot-headed hunter wanted the satisfaction of seeing fear and knowing in the devil’s eyes, before death reigned down with the righteous sword that Hugh wielded for his faith.

It was a risk. It could be hours before the boy recovered from the drug, so if he wanted that moment when he looked his enemy in the eye and claimed his win, he needed to be patient just a little longer. Deciding that he would come back periodically, he checked the boy’s handcuffs, threw on his jacket and wandered outside.

Over the next two hours, Hugh returned every fifteen minutes to find his captive still out cold. His frustration grew with each trip until he lost his temper and kicked the calf that lay closest to him. In his anger and distraction, he almost missed the slight flinch that shook the young body but happened to glance at the teen’s face just as pain flashed across it.

“Hey,” he said gruffly and pushed his foot against the same leg. “Hey, kid!” Another kick, this time a bit harder. He watched carefully and when there was no reaction, he muttered darkly to himself, “If you’re faking sleep, kid, I swear I’ll forget that I was going to be merciful in killing you.”

He huffed, bit his tongue in thought and then tensed as he aimed for the calf a third time. The sound of the impact filled the air in the open-plan space of fallen walls and broken beams, but the teen remained unmoving and, to all appearances, dead to the world. With a huff, the hunter admitted to himself that he had probably imagined the movement from his first kick and resigned to waiting a bit longer.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he jeered at his unresponsive companion before heading once more for the door.

* * * * *

Heart hammering in his chest, Fredrick continued to bite back tears of pain as he waited to be sure that his tormentor had actually left. He tasted blood where he’d bitten his tongue – preventing the cry that surged through him as he took the impact of a steel-toed boot. He swallowed and forced himself to breathe regularly, to chase away the nausea. He had a limited amount of time and couldn’t afford to waste a second.

When he’d first woken from his involuntary nap an hour or so earlier, it’d taken his sluggish brain several minutes to work out what had happened. Then his attacker had returned and he’d feigned unconsciousness. When alone again, he’d taken proper stock of his surroundings and almost laughed with relief at the feel of the handcuffs around his wrists. He’d spent a few seconds fiddling with the bracelets before hearing a click, followed by a clunk as they fell to the floor.

Cautiously, he’d risen to his feet and taken a look around. He’d had to be careful not to disturb his surroundings and made sure to cover up his tracks. The dirt on the floor was hard packed in places, probably where the mystery stalker had been pacing back and forth, and Freddy had taken care to tread mostly in those areas. He’d discovered a rifle propped up in the corner of the open space, nearest to the door, and took a moment to tweak the sights just slightly. In a backpack (not his own, which he assumed was still lying behind the school cafeteria), he’d found a syringe in a case and a vial of what he assumed was a tranquilizer. At the bottom of the bag were half a dozen protein bars and he ate one quickly while contemplating his next move. Several gallons of water sat in bottles under a long table and he grabbed the open one. After dumping out the contents of the vial in a discrete place and covering it with dirt, he took a long drink from the water bottle and refilled the empty container, taking care not to overfill it.

Fearing the passing of time, he replaced the items, hid his rubbish and checked that he’d left no obvious markings before returning to his place on the floor. Time seemed to stretch uncomfortably long once he’d replaced his cuffs and laid still. Thoughts had bombarded his mind. Should he make a run for it? What if the man was gone for hours and this was the optimum time? Was Holly ok? What was happening at home? Was his family alright?

The sound of heavy foot-falls soon reassured him that he’d made the right choice to play dead, but as he lay there now, struggling against the urge to call for his mothers to take his pain away, he knew he couldn’t afford to wait until the man returned a third time. The handcuffs popped off his wrists a second time and he slipped them into his pocket before trying to stand. It took him longer than he liked; sweat beaded at his temples and several expletives fell in hushed groans from his mouth before he was upright and moving gingerly towards the door.

His journey through the woodland was painfully slow, both mentally and physically. He’d taken what he was sure was the opposite direction to his captor but, with limitations pressing on him, he hadn’t been able to cover his tracks from the abandoned building as well as he’d have liked. Now, he was just concentrating on putting as much distance as possible between him and his hunter. Hopefully, he’d reach civilisation before the man caught up with him.

He became aware that he was making too much noise and knew that he’d be easy to track. As white-hot pain lanced up his leg, he felt the need to stop. Running was not an option, but what else could he do? Freddy leant up against an obliging tree and took several quick breaths. He could hear traffic but it was distant, too far for anyone to hear him yell. The trees were still in transition between summer and autumn and some held enough cover for a body, but he knew he would never be able to climb in his current state. The best option now was a burrow.

For a few minutes, he wandered off in the direction of the sound of traffic and then backtracked to where he’d decided to build his hide. There were several lumps of earth scattered across the forest to disguise his body, the mountainous terrain would not give him away easily, and enough leaf-fall and bracken to use as cover. After finding a particularly dense area of trees and removing any obvious tracks in that direction, he fashioned a small lean-to, curved his body round a mound of mud and rocks, and began to place random handfuls of debris over his human form.

It was a relief to no longer be standing. As he’d stumbled through the trees, he’d decided that either his left tibia or fibula (or both) were cracked. He could feel the swelling around the injury, and the heat that suffused his body signalled the start of a fever. On the other hand, lying in wait for someone who was determined to kill him was not a pleasant prospect either, and as those same heavy foot-falls came swiftly towards his wandered path some minutes later, he waited helplessly for what was to come.

* * * * *

**Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean – Early hours of Friday morning.**

It was easy to forget, as she listened to HG spinning tales of their exploits together, that she was still angry. In fact, Myka wasn’t even entirely sure if she _was_ angry anymore, but there remained in her a need to hold onto the feeling like a security blanket. If she stopped being angry, she knew that she would start falling again. She couldn’t let her guard down; she should not leave herself vulnerable to the same trap.

Their life together sounded amazing though. Helena had hinted at periods where they’d struggled and joked once or twice, in a subdued manner, about their youngest daughter’s challenging behaviour, but it sounded as though they were a loving and caring family who generally enjoyed life, despite their dark and uncertain horizon.

Why wouldn’t she want to be a part of that? It was an image of a life better than anything she’d ever imagined. And _that_ was precisely the problem.

It seemed too good to be true, which pointed her thoughts heavily in the direction of being under the influence of an artefact. Perhaps, with time, she would begin to see things differently – real life surely couldn’t be so perfect – and maybe after having chance to talk to Pete, Artie and the rest of the team, she would find more confidence in what Helena was telling her. On the other hand, she might find a way back to reality and wake up on the floor of Warehouse 2.

She wasn’t aware of her own contemplative silence for some time after the inventor came back to her point and stopped talking. It wasn’t until HG’s voice asked gently if she was alright that she found her focus again. “Yes… It’s just a lot to take in. Carlo Collodi?”

“Sorry,” Helena offered and tried to strike a balance between being simple with her explanation but not patronising. Since the mission itself wasn’t really a priority at present though, she just gave the highlights. “It was a turning point for us, that mission. I think that was when you truly began to trust me again. I wish I could say that I was able to make better decisions about my life then, but months passed after that mission before I was ready to find you again. Even then, it was an artefact and a mission to save a young girl that brought us back together.”

Green eyes watched nervous hands as they slipped inside a shirt and grasped the chain of a necklace. The all too familiar action raised an alarm bell. “You still wear the locket?” Myka asked abruptly. Curiosity pawed hungrily at her mind, but too many thoughts about how they became an official couple were doing strange things to her insides.

“Uh… No,” Helena answered sharply and dropped the chain back inside her shirt. Myka eyed her with renewed suspicion but for once the inventor didn’t care. Was she not allowed this one thing to bring her comfort?

“So, what is it? Another memento to remind you of something you’ve lost?” If Myka’s tone was crueller than usual, it was not without reason. She still hadn’t ruled out the possibility that everything HG told her was a lie, and the investigator in her remained on the lookout for anything that might be evidence to support this fear.

“You could say that,” HG hedged. She didn’t want to reveal the rings that she wore around her neck. She worried that seeing them would be too much for Myka and since they’d been making such progress, she didn’t want to derail them. She wished rather than believed that the brunette would accept her vague answer. “Moreover though, it is a reminder that hope may yet still live.”

Myka eyed her companion, making it clear that she wasn’t going to take anything that the inventor had to say on faith; she wanted open access to everything they discussed. “Well?”

Sighing, Helena reached back inside her shirt and wrapped her hand around her wife’s wedding and engagement rings. After Dex had dropped the precious items into her hand and she’d pulled herself together, she’d threaded them onto her necklace to keep them close to her heart. As she’d done with her picture of Christina over the years, she reached for them whenever she felt particularly overwhelmed, although this time, instead of fuelling her anger and sorrow, they gave her strength to believe that her wife was not completely lost to her. Not that it made the brunette’s coarse tones any easier to hear.

Knowing that she would not appease the brunette simply by telling Myka what they were, she stole herself and opened her hand to reveal the bands of metal lying still in her palm. “I hope that I’ve learned how to keep negative thoughts at bay without something tangible to hold onto, but I don’t see the harm in having something to help.”

Myka’s thoughts lost all momentum as she comprehended the rings and the symbolism that the inventor was clinging to so tightly. She saw a depth of pain behind HG’s eyes and felt a pang of sympathy. She uttered another small ‘oh’ followed by an even smaller ‘sorry’. As Helena began to tug the objects back inside her shirt however, she caught sight of them for the first time with recognition and grabbed the inventor’s wrist to stop her. “Those are mine!” she hissed with shock.

Helena frowned for a second and then realised what her companion was thinking. Swallowing her disappointment, she held the rings out again and nodded. “I know…”

“No,” Myka interrupted, misinterpreting the Brit’s words. “I _bought_ them,” she explained and felt renewed anger creeping up on her. “When I was fourteen I bought them!” she whispered harshly. Again, doubt took hold of her and suggested insidious possibilities, but a small part of her clung to patience and reason.

“I **know** , Myka,” HG insisted. “You bought them at a pawn shop in Boston. You were with your father. He was bartering with the owner for a set of Emily Dickinson’s books and you went wandering around. You found a puzzle box. Warren’s negotiations were not successful, so you had to leave it, but you persuaded your mother to let you return to the shop.” Helena paused and softened her tone. “The shop keeper told you that they had once belonged to HG Wells and encouraged you to pay over the odds for the box. Once you cracked it open however, you realised that it was a lucky find after all.”

Myka blushed at hearing the story retold by the very person she had admired as a teen. Even more so because she assumed that it painted her as naïve. “I guess it wasn’t even a family heirloom of yours, was it?”

“Not the box,” Helena agreed kindly. She hesitated and added cautiously, “But the rings did belong to my grandmother and were intended for you.”

“Because you proposed with them?” Myka assumed again – she couldn’t see any other explanation.

HG tucked the rings away and wiped her hands along her trousers, smoothing out the slightly wrinkled fabric. “You must keep an open mind,” she began and watched an expressive eyebrow rise in question. “The box is an artefact. Claudia has it now, safely hidden away, but it was used over the centuries to carry important items to specific individuals. The box absorbs part of the person for whom the item is intended, usually a lock of hair, and then secures said item until the recipient opens the box and takes possession. It then becomes dormant until it is used again.”

“Really?” Myka responded scornfully. “You can’t _not_ see the flaw in that story.”

Smiling, Helena nodded. “My grandmother _had_ a lock of your hair when she left the box, with the rings, in Boston. _You_ gave it to her when you and Christina visited London in 1890.”

* * * * *

Pete Lattimer paced his best friend’s living room and watched her eldest daughter as Christina listened intently to whoever had called the house. The gut-kicking vibe he’d felt half an hour ago still trembled through his bones and he was impatient to have something to do. _I promised Mykes I’d take care of them. I let her down,_ he thought fretfully. He’d never been so annoyed at his sixth sense for having selective timing. Not even when he, Steve and HG had been investigating the disappearances in Hollywood. What good was knowing that something terrible had happened if he couldn’t do anything to prevent it? His only consolation was that his vibe didn’t yet compare to what he’d felt the night his dad had died. That had to mean that Freddy was still alive.

_This is a really bad dream,_ Christina rationalised as she held the house phone tight against her ear and listened to carefully to the controlled and apologetic tones of her brother’s principal. _Please, let this be a dream!_

“How…” She closed her eyes and processed what little information she’d managed to pry from the woman so far. For the benefit of the people in the room who were still watching her worriedly, she voiced the dreaded words again, “You found a student unconscious behind the school kitchens, you have footage of an unidentified van entering and leaving the premises, and Freddy didn’t turn up for class?”

A flurry of activity encompassed the room before Christina had even finished her sentence and she felt her faculties return to her with a renewed sense of purpose. Barely offering the senior educator a farewell, she hung up the phone and took her lead from her family. They snagged any piece of emergency equipment that they could carry with tense hands, called Claudia to tell her what was happening and piled into two cars.

“Ark’s not answering,” Thomas seethed from his seat in the back. “He checked in almost an hour ago. I’m going to get a lock on his location.” He stared at the tracking device in his hand and avoided looking up to see the frozen anguish on his girlfriend’s face. He’d been so sure that his team could keep the family safe until regents Bering and Wells arrived home, but he’d failed. Guilt wouldn’t do him any good at the moment though and he pushed it aside as he did everything in his power to find solutions.

In the car behind Christina’s, Rupert and Eleanor watched as Artie weaved through the streets in hot pursuit of their comrades and considered their situation. Had they done the right thing in letting their granddaughter take the lead? Had their lack of interference allowed someone to take Fredrick? As they considered these questions, Eleanor voiced another, “Should we not contact Helena and Myka?”

“We agreed to be transparent with them,” Rupert agreed with his wife. “But we also agreed to leave these decisions up to Christina. What sort of message will she interpret if we seize control from her at this point?”

Artie shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. His instinct was always to take over and spare his friends any pain. Especially the young ones, but the old regents had a point. “I don’t see how Myka or HG could help from where they are. We don’t even have all of the details yet and calling them could just delay us. But,” he added reluctantly, “you should probably ask CJ anyway.”

Eleanor nodded and sighed. It was difficult not to feel like they were making the same mistakes all over again. “Yes, that would seem the best option.”

They soon arrived at the high school and were forced to find space to park on the street as local law enforcement had blocked off the entrance. Thomas and Aggie took off to look for their missing comrade, thinking that there were enough people around to deter further attacks, and promised to return swiftly. After pushing through the small crowd gathered out front, Artie pulled something from his ever-present, black bag and spent all of thirty seconds talking to one of the officers before they were given a personal escort into the school.

As they pushed their way through the crowd, a familiar voice rang out and grabbed their attention. Mostly Pete’s. He paused just beyond the barrier, his expression stony but compassionate as he watched his daughter approach.

“Dad!” Sophie called again as she desperately tried to reach him. There were tears in her eyes and she scrubbed at them with her sleeves as she finally made her way through the packed bodies. She tried to duck under the barrier but strong arms reached out to stop her. Knowing that it was useless to fight with her father, she trapped him with a hard stare instead. “What happened? They’re saying that Freddy’s disappeared! I want to help find him!”

Pete was aware that time was of the essence but he didn’t want his little girl anywhere near danger. Especially the type that had taken hold of his surrogate nephew. “Soph’, we don’t know what’s happened yet. But we’re going to investigate and we’ll find him,” he tried to reassure her.

“Meaning what? You just want me to hang out at school while you all run off?” she asked incredulously, reminding Pete of her mother. “Let me help,” she begged.

Former agent Lattimer nodded slowly but didn’t remove his hand from her shoulder. “Let us finish up here and I’ll come get you before we leave.” He watched her mouth open to insist on more, probably to help him out sooner, but he stopped her before she could begin. “Not up for debate, kid.” He started to back away. “Stay there. I’ll be back,” he added and watched her eyes roll at his terminator impression.

He jogged over to the small, highly focussed team and felt his insides tighten. “What do we got?”

In a tone severed of emotion, Christina began to recite their findings, “One of the catering staff found a girl’s unconscious body lying behind the dumpster and raised the alarm. Students aren’t supposed to be in this area and she wasn’t the type to rebel according to the principal so they investigated a little.” She took a breath and held up the backpack in her hand. It was Fredrick’s. “That’s when they found this and discovered that Rick wasn’t in class. Claudia’s going over the surveillance footage and said she’ll get back to us when she has the route that the van took.”

Artie pulled his ageing body up from where he’d been studying the area around the dumpster. He popped an object back into his iconic bag and grunted to himself. Though supposedly he’d returned all of his oft-used artefacts to their place in the Warehouse when it moved to Norway, they were all aware that he’d probably kept one or two that were unregistered to the mystical building. At the annoyance on his face though, it was clear that he had gleaned very little from his search.

“Christina is concerned for Catherine’s safety,” Eleanor told Pete when the silence stretched on a little too long and smiled as he immediately took the initiative to call the girl’s school.

“Flower?” Rupert addressed his distressed great-granddaughter. He waited for her to turn to him and reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “Norie and I should return to the house. Aggie can escort us to fetch Catherine and then she can pass the mantel onto Ace and return to assist you. We will be of little use to you in the field I’m afraid.”

Christina felt tears prick the backs of her eyes and pulled her Pappy into a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered into his ear. The scared little girl inside of her wanted them to stay and tell her what to do, but she knew that he was right.

“You should think about whether and when it would be beneficial to call your mothers,” Eleanor instructed the young woman gently, eliciting from CJ a small nod.

The wait for Claudia’s information threatened to drive them mad and Christina paced with the Farnsworth held tightly in her hand for what felt like a lifetime. Fortunately, Thomas returned before she could let her thoughts wander too far into the land of despair and reported, to their relief, that they’d found Ark alive but disorientated. He’d been drugged with a tranquilizer and was being treated by paramedics close by, but he was mobile and eager to prove himself after having allowed someone to get the drop on him.

 “What about Cat?” Christina asked Pete as he hung up from calling the middle school. There was no shortage of trepidation in her voice.

“She’s fine,” he answered quickly, not wanting to keep the young woman in suspense. “They’re happy for us to pick her up early if we need to, but otherwise they’ll keep her on site. I didn’t think she should leave on the bus.”

Christina breathed a sigh of relief. “No. Thank you. Aggie, could you please take my gram and gramps over to Cat’s school and take her home? I’d rather not take the chance that she’s a target too.”

“Yes, ma’am. Ace confirms that all is quiet on her end,” she tried to assure her, “but we’ll make sure the little one gets home.”

Christina sighed and tried to smile. “Though she be but little, she is fierce. Don’t let her out of your sight for a moment.”

“Take Sophie with you, will ya?” Pete chipped in. “She wants to help, but I don’t want her anywhere near this guy we’re after. You can pick Jake up too. It’ll be best if we know they’re all together, right?” He barely waited for the answering nods all around before he was back on the phone and passing on instructions to his son’s school and then on to Lila.

Fortunately, the group didn’t have to agonise over the situation for long. Before the ‘baby-sitting’ crew were out of sight, the klaxon sound of the Farnsworth captured Christina’s attention. She yanked open the cover and jabbed the button with agitated fingers. “Tell me you have it,” she begged the caretaker.

“I’ve got it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eek! What's going to happen!?


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of the kudos!
> 
> This is the last chapter for The Battle - Part One. While I'm not planning on taking a break from writing on this occasion, it will take time to put the next part together. I hope you'll all still be with me when I have it ready!

** Chapter Ten **

**Boulder, Colorado – Thursday afternoon.**

Keeping his eyes firmly shut, Fredrick Wells-Bering opened his remaining senses to the forest and absorbed all the information he could. He remembered the day that Christina had hidden from him for four hours while he became increasingly frustrated trying to find her. He’d begged her later to teach him how and for weeks they’d practised until he became almost a part of the forest himself.

Despite the knowledge that something dark awaited their family in the future, he’d never envisioned needing all of the myriad survival skills that his parents had insisted they learn. Now, he was nevermore grateful for their unwavering vision.

Under his nose, the musty smell of decaying leaves helped to calm his mind and bring his racing heart back under control, bird song in the trees gave him something to focus on other than the relentless throbbing in his leg, and the solid feel of earth beneath him provided vital information on the whereabouts of his pursuer. How many times had Christina passed his hiding place the last time they played this ‘game’? She was a fair tracker and she’d gone back and forth several times before finding him. He had to play it cool and not give himself away. Tina’s encouraging voice in his head was the extra kick he needed to feel confident in his place and hold his nerve.

The boots were back. Perhaps a hundred metres north-east from Freddy’s position. They marched past with careless steps and faded into the distance for several minutes before returning to kick angrily through the dirt. A series of curses cut through the air, breaking the canopy cacophony. When the birds resumed their tree-top conversations, the teen listened carefully, straining to catch even the slightest movement, but there was nothing. His nerves twitched, fingers itched and the urge to run swept through his body, but he stayed frozen against the hard ground. He’d eaten, he’d drunk and if he had to, he would piss himself before giving away his position. He was good for maybe twenty-four hours so long as shock or hypothermia didn’t set in first. But his family wouldn’t leave him for so long. They would find him, he was certain.

With this mantra running on repeat through his thoughts, he allowed his tense muscles to relax again. The hunter was desperate now, he could tell. Though the man might have reigned himself in to try and encourage Freddy to come out of hiding, he must know that he was running out of time, and the longer he waited, the more mistakes he would probably make.

About an hour passed before Fredrick heard his opponent change tactics. Instead of waiting for movement, those steel-toes began to kick through leaves and dirt, the sound rising and falling in a pattern that seemed odd until the boy realised that the hunter was searching the immediate area in an ever-approaching zig-zag. He gulped. While time consuming, it was a process that almost guaranteed results if the sought for prey was hiding. _Which it is,_ he reminded himself.

For too few minutes, the teen held on to the last speck of hope he had – that help was on the way. His heart picked up its frantic rhythm again and he tensed for the dreaded moment that was coming… The struggle that he knew he might lose. If he could make the man fall… If he could surprise him… he might stand a chance. He might be able to get the upper hand.

He envisioned the handcuffs in his pocket, his fingers almost reaching for them as the determined marching kicked at the ground near to his head and moved on. _Next time,_ he thought, counting the steps now and measuring the man’s stride in his mind. _When he comes past again, he’ll be right on top of me._

And then it happened! The moment he’d prayed for.

* * * * *

Christina’s team managed to learn everything they could before Artie’s manipulation of the local police began to wear off and officers started to look at the small team with increasing suspicion. The plain blue van that backed up behind the school kitchens left the premises just before one o’clock and was last seen on CCTV cameras heading west on Boulder Canyon Dr. They didn’t need the police to tell them to go. As soon as they had a direction, the elite group piled back into Christina’s car and were hot on the tail of the kidnapper.

Not wanting local law enforcement to get in their way, Christina neglected to mention their findings as they pulled away from Fredrick’s school, but she seriously considered calling her mothers - if just to hear their reassuring voices telling her that she could succeed.

It was a stupid thought really. The moment either of her parents heard the words ‘Freddy’ and ‘missing’ they would be anything but calm and encouraging. Panic, anger and yelling would be a more likely response. In a best-case scenario, they would pelt her with questions and then do their best to contact everyone they knew while they attempted to extrapolate possible suspects, motives and locations for where Fredrick might be. In short, everything that was already being done. They were still almost a day away from home. It would be cruel to tell them that their son was missing when they were stuck in a metal tube, thousands of kilometres in the air, right? This situation was not the same as withholding information from her brother when potential danger was so close.

Rather than fight for the driver’s seat, Christina delegated to her boyfriend, whose head had to be slightly clearer than her own. She needed to be smart; ploughing them all headlong into a tree or another car because she was distracted was not smart. Instead, she focussed on her senses, calling out to the familial tug that connected her to her siblings. It had always been stronger with Freddy, perhaps because they had once shared a womb, and she desperately hoped that that fact would help her now.

* * * * *

The footsteps were coming closer again, he could tell. They’d reached their furthest point and were heading back along the ‘zag’, back towards him. But before they could reach him, a beautiful sound did.

From far off, but getting steadily closer, voices called his name. Christina, Uncle Pete and more! He wanted to yell for them. To curl up in their arms and cry like a baby. Relief and panic filled his veins. He knew he wasn’t the only one who’d heard the calls though and as his pursuer picked up the pace, scouring the landscape in earnest now, Freddy had a bizarre urge to laugh. How could they be so close and yet so far away?

More heavily-booted steps approached rapidly from a distance. Not the hunter’s. Another rescuer? But the man was on him now. A hard kick impacted his shoulder and though he tried to keep any sound from escaping, he couldn’t help the muted groan as his adolescent body absorbed the force of the adult’s desperation. Strong hands scrabbled around through his camouflage and grabbed at parts of his clothing.

He brought an elbow back above his head and connected with a jaw, making the hunter stumble for a moment. His body swimming with adrenaline, he rolled, moving passed the pain in his leg with a growl, and managed to clothesline an arm against the back of the man’s knees, bringing him down. Freddy tried to use his elbow to effect again, this time towards a prominent nose, but he couldn’t move fast enough and the face was gone before he was anywhere near it. Fearing a reprisal, he scrambled out of arm’s reach and attempted to pull himself to his feet. As he crawled to a tree and reached for a branch to grab on to, he heard frantic searching behind him and then the sound of a rifle being cocked, ready to fire.

* * * * *

For the first time in a long time, HG wished that her life was normal and boring. She watched the building scepticism behind her favourite shade of green and felt her hopes wane a little more. Who in their right mind would believe that they had travelled into the past, met their soul mate and left a baby behind to grow up in their absence? Even as a purveyor of fantastical science-fiction, Helena knew that the tale was ridiculously over complicated. Myka was right to distrust their story.

But it was real. It was their life. Their love story with a thousand twists and she couldn’t regret being in the middle of it. _This is just one more twist_ , she considered and reached subconsciously for her necklace again. No matter how little Myka believed at this moment in time, HG knew that her wife loved their life together too. She had to hold on to thoughts like this because the woman sitting next to her now was the broken, former shadow of the woman she loved and Myka needed her to be patient.

“This is…” Myka shook her head as she tried to find the words to explain herself. “Ludicrous.”

Helena swallowed her hurt and nodded. “Yes. That does not alter its truth however.”

“You want me to believe that the girl in your locket was… is… mine?” Wayward curls danced listlessly with another shake of the brunette’s head. Her brain felt like it was being squeezed through a mangle and was stuck because it was so thick with impossible thoughts.

“It is true whether you believe it or not.” Hearing the hardness in her own words, Helena sighed deeply and pulled in a long lungful of air. It was two o’clock in the morning and she was exhausted. Sleep was not likely to come to her, but she needed to try and some part of her vehemently hoped that she would wake to find that her wife’s memory loss was simply a nightmare that could be chased away by a pair of loving arms. “I’m sorry,” she offered gently.

“No, I…” Myka closed her eyes and copied the inventor’s calming technique. Despite the turmoil in her own body and mind, she found herself softening, her anger ebbing gradually. “If it _is_ true, then all of this must be very painful for you,” she said, showing outward compassion for the first time since facing Helena in that courtyard after she’d woken up in a truck less than a day ago. “We should take a break,” she suggested softly and lifted a hand before freezing and bringing it awkwardly back into her lap.

By mutual consent, they broke from conversation and found refuge in their own thoughts. Myka’s questions stopped and she busied herself with the inflight magazine for a time before deciding to shut the world out with her eye-mask. Rest was a distant concept as she eventually succumbed to sleep but continued to twitch and fidget through her dreams. For a while, compassionate brown helplessly watched her struggle, until they could stand the sight no longer and turned to cast their watery depths on the inky blackness of night.

Helena wasn’t sure exactly when she’d fallen into her own restless slumber but it was the harsh light of day that trespassed upon her dreams and pulled her back to reality. The tight churning in her stomach from the day before remained but it was the lingering panic from her disturbed dreams that pulled at her thoughts the most.

In sleep, deep in the woodland that blackened the western border of Colorado, Helena had staggered through bracken and over uneven ground, fleeing as fast as she could from some unknown pursuer.

Even now that she was awake, her heart thumped rapidly beneath her rib cage and her leg ached from some unknown malady. She tried to shake it off but both the unease and the phantom ache persisted. Looking to her right, she found her companion still asleep and sighed her relief. It was so much easier to pretend that she and Myka were fine when she couldn’t see the hurt and mistrust staring back at her. Though when almost an hour passed, as the butterflies in her stomach continued to batter her insides and the ache in her leg intensified, she couldn’t help but reach out to the other regent for help.

“Myka!” Helena’s fingers wrapped around the brunette’s forearm and shook it.

Regent Bering jerked awake behind her mask, ripped it from her face and lurched back into her seat, away from the inventor. “What?!” she asked irritably. Any compassion that she’d worn before sleep had washed away and the harsh lines of her resentment were back.

HG felt her wife’s reaction cut through her immediate concerns to her core but pushed the pain down and corked it. Her voice lowered but the intensity remained. “Do you not feel that? Something’s wrong.”

“I don’t feel anything,” Myka responded as she paused and glanced around them, wondering what new game the inventor was playing.

Helena huffed her own annoyance and recaptured the other regent’s arm a little harder than necessary. She tugged it towards her chest, pulled the chain from her shirt with the other hand and wrapped Myka’s fingers around the rings that dangled between them. “Feel _that_.”

Perhaps it was the genuine look of dawning terror in dark eyes or a natural curiosity to find answers, but for whatever reason, Myka responded and lowered her guard just a little. As her fingers clasped around the metal of their own accord, she was hit by the same gut-churning panic. “Oh my God,” she hissed and yanked her hand away to escape the sensation, and to reach down to rub at the sore spot on her leg.

HG’s expression tightened. “What did you feel? What did you smell?” she demanded to know. More than anything she wanted Myka to tell her that she’d felt nothing, and that Helena’s concerns were imagined, but she knew she would have no such luck.

The dream and now this? Somehow, they were connected to the people back home, to her children. That Myka could feel it too without knowing anything about their home life just made her suspicions all the more convincing, which could only mean that someone was in trouble.

“Halloween,” the brunette answered after careful thought.

Dark eyes narrowed with confusion. “Halloween?”

“Yes. Damp air and decaying leaves: Halloween,” Myka insisted. “And my leg hurts.” She watched as HG’s expression cycled through several emotions and realised that she had never seen the Brit so animated. She tried to catalogue each one as they appeared but there were so many. Who was this exposed, unguarded person?

Helena dragged both hands through her hair before diving into the top pocket of Myka’s bag and grabbing the Farnsworth. “I have to call Pete,” she muttered in way of an explanation.

Myka watched closely as her companion pushed the button that she remembered was assigned to Pete and waited to see what would happen. She had thought about contacting him after her conversation with Claudia back at the hotel, but at the time she had felt so overwhelmed by her thoughts that she was content to wait until seeing him in person rather than just an image on a screen. As the call connected, she couldn’t help but lean over slightly to see if he was as she remembered him.

 _“Hey, HG.”_ Agent Lattimer’s voice came through the speaker, sounding overly energised.

The first things HG focussed on were the trees behind her friend’s head and she muttered one word, “Woodland,” before panic suffused her voice again, “Pete, why are you in the woods?”

Though a grown man, Agent Lattimer still managed to look like a young kid who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His gaze flicked back and forth between objects in his surroundings before hesitating on the inventor again. “ _Erm, I’m gonna hand you over to the kid now. CJ!?”_

Christina’s face appeared on the screen, her expression caught somewhere between contrition and dread. _“Mum?”_

“Christina, why are you in the woods?” HG felt a hand on her arm and turned to frown at the other regent. Though Myka’s gaze held compassion, there was something else… nerves? caution? embarrassment? She looked across the aisle and realised from the strangers watching her that she must have been raising her voice more than usual. Uncaring of their opinions, she turned sharply back to the Farnsworth and shrugged off Myka’s loose grip. The interruption made her angry. Myka… _Her_ Myka would not have cared about strangers either. “What on earth is going on?” she asked tersely.

 _“I… You were already on your way back… I thought…”_ The young woman fumbled uncharacteristically over her words as she continued to follow her gut through the trunks of trees. She could feel him. She was so close now.

Helena couldn’t begin to process what might be happening at home. A woman who barely knew her sat next to her on the plane, wearing the body of her wife, and her eldest child was wandering, panic stricken through a forest. Why? “Christina Josephine Wells-Bering, I do not care how old you are, tell me what you’re doing!”

And then Christina was mouthing words that the inventor didn’t want to hear. _“Rick’s out here.”_

HG swallowed hard. “Why is your brother out there?”

_“Someone took him!”_

* * * * *

“You’re dead, kid,” a rasping voice goaded Fredrick as he continued to use the tree for support. “I’ve got you in my sights now.”

The teen managed to find ground with his good leg and half-stood, leaning against the tree. He took a moment to get his breath back as he turned to face his attacker with a defiant smirk. He found the barrel of the rifle staring back at him. Would his adjustment of the weapon make a difference at this range? Using his sister’s suspicions and hoping that it would distract his opponent, he taunted the man, “You’ve had me in your sights for over a week. What took you so long?” Was there enough distance between them? Had the hunter noticed that his carefully prepared weapon had been tampered with?

The teen wasn’t quite sure what happened next. The hunter lowered the rifle and pulled out a hand gun, the better for close distance. Disinclined to waste any more time, he aimed and Freddy, realising that all of his efforts had been in vain, saw his life flash before his eyes. There was a bang, his ears filled with the ringing retort, and then… the hunter’s body was falling. He felt pain blossom in his right shoulder and reached up find blood pooling from an open wound. Already injured and exhausted from his ordeal, black spots appeared before his eyes, he slid down the trunk of the tree and came to rest, slumped at its base.

He watched through half-conscious vision as a tall figure approached the fallen hunter and pushed with the heel of its boot to check that the man was dead. Seemingly satisfied, it approached the teen. Fredrick’s eyes slid shut just as he caught the shape of beautiful eyes, full lips and a long, deep scar.

“Get rid of the body,” the woman ordered to more figures behind her. “Leave the boy. His people are close by. He’ll live.”

More movement through the leaves. Many feet. Then, nothing but the ever-increasing volume of warm, worried voices closing in. As he finally lost consciousness, Fredrick smiled.

_* * * * *_

_Someone took him._

Myka recognised the look of helpless defeat that fell over the inventor’s face as Christina’s voice uttered those fateful words. She watched as elegant hands lost their strength and reacted to catch the Farnsworth as it tumbled from a shaky grip. Conscious of how she should probably feel in this situation, and also how removed she felt from these children who were supposedly part of her, she didn’t linger over the end of the call, but simply requested an update before the end of the hour then closed the device and tucked it away.

She watched as HG’s body curled in on itself and a head dropped into pale, still shaky hands. She felt an uncomfortable awkwardness fill her chest as narrow shoulders began to shudder and Helena sucked in choked gasps of air. She remembered how easy it had been to kneel in front of the Brit to offer comfort after the medusa’s trial in Warehouse 2, and she wished that she could have that confidence back.

Regardless of Helena’s sins though, Myka was not the kind of person who could readily ignore a fellow being in distress. A tentative hand rose from her lap and hesitated before landing on the Brit’s shoulder. “HG? Hey, it’s gonna be alright,” she offered lamely.

“Our son has been kidnapped and is wandering, injured, through the forest, and you do not even remember that you have a son,” Helena sniffled angrily. Her eyes snapped closed tightly and a lone tear escaped to run off the end of a wobbling chin. “And I’m trapped here where I can do nothing to help him. And I wonder – do you even care?” Fingertips tapped briefly against her lower lips as she rolled her eyes towards the sky. “Is this my just reward?” she asked the heavens.

Myka flinched and tried to ignore the spiteful voice that wanted to agree. “I’m sure it’s not.”

Dark orbs turned to the American and narrowed. “You say that with such casual conviction, but you’re not sure at all, are you? This broken woman who betrayed you not so long ago. Who allows insanity into her mind when she loses those she loves. You cannot trust that I won’t attempt some crazy scheme to save him… or you.”

With those words, she turned from her companion and stared longingly out across the skittering wisps of cloud. She needed to pull herself together. Her own words echoed back at her; what lengths _would_ she go to and was she still capable of disregarding the consequences?

* * * * *

**Thursday afternoon, outside Renmark, Australia**

Heracles watched from afar, his thoughts bordering on disinterest as Helena attempted to disarm her wife’s ire. He’d told her that he regretted the necessity of making her life more difficult and perhaps some small, distant part of him did. He would have preferred to entice the inventor to his side, or at least leave that option open, but now that the deed was done, he no more felt guilt about his actions than each time he banished another son’s soul to oblivion. The only other option was to relinquish his claim to his father’s legacy and in his opinion, that was no option at all.

He felt the creeping presence of Agent Kipling and prepared himself for the man’s redundant questions and observations. It always helped to picture the long game when he was forced to endure inferior followers. He had retained Mr Kipling simply because of the deeply antagonistic relationship he had with Agent Wells. One should never underestimate the power that emotions had over one’s performance. Kipling’s mere presence would have a detrimental effect on his opponents – a weapon that he wanted in his arsenal just in case.

That didn’t mean that he had to like or suffer the fool gladly.

“It appears that your efforts were successful,” Lloyd commented as he watched Myka throw her rings into the dirt by HG’s feet.

The satisfied smirk on Kipling’s face was evident also in his voice as he answered, “Yes, sir. I believe she knew precisely to which period of her life she would return. That bodes well for your plans. Miss Wells should be suitably distracted for the foreseeable future.”

“Very well.” The heir turned from the window to settle his gaze on the agent. “That is pleasing, if unfortunate,” he said as he moved past Kipling and across the room to where a wooden bench stood with a long bag sat on top of it.

“Unfortunate?” the fool blurted in confusion. From behind his leader, he couldn’t see the heir’s eyes as they narrowed in distain, or the dark shadow passing over them, and so missed the subtle warning that his loud thoughts were not appreciated. “They are our enemies, are they not? They deserve what we are able to inflict upon them, surely?”

“Deserve?” Lloyd repeated, his tone suggesting that he found the word curious. “An interesting choice. A word which has its roots in Latin, originally meaning ‘to devote oneself to the service of’.” He turned – one hand casually caressing the surface of the wood behind him – and pinned his subordinate with a hard stare. “You professed your devotion to _me_ when I woke you to this life. What, perhaps, do _you_ deserve?”

“My lord?”

“Devotion and service are not reflected in your actions or intentions, Mr Kipling,” the heir began, deliberately missing out the agent’s preferred title. “Your mistakes today were borne out of selfish desire. I do not tolerate selfishness amongst my devotees.”

“I… I made no mistakes, sir,” Kipling argued stupidly. He had a dawning dread though that he knew what his mistake was. “The artefact worked. You just saw…”

“What were my instructions to you?” Lloyd interrupted sharply.

“Sir?” This time he saw the shadow, the darkness that pulled the heir’s features into a somewhat demonic visage. He gulped.

“You are not an uneducated man, Mr Kipling,” an alarmingly calm voice crept across the room. “You cannot be so arrogant as to assume that you are above the fate so often met by those who displease me. I do not suggest you begin down that path now.”

The agent tried to swallow but found that his throat was too tight. His voice, in turn, wobbled as it formed around his words. “I was to introduce Miss Bering to the artefact without undue violence.”

“Very good, Mr Kipling,” Lloyd responded sarcastically. “Now, of those two instructions, to which did you have difficulty adhering?”

The agent stared at the young man before him and faltered. He had witnessed the deference afforded to Mr Spenser-Chapman on many occasions now but had assumed that it was a love of money and power rather than fear which bent the knees of the serfs. Who would bow so readily to a man barely older than a boy otherwise? Perhaps that assumption was his true mistake. “I struck her,” he admitted finally.

“Yes, you did. I do not give second chances very often. My patience is reserved for Time, an entity which deserves respect; we are its servants,” he added with an amused and regretful huff.

Kipling stood, rooted to the spot. He wanted to ask for direction, to beg for a way to redeem himself, but held his tongue. His eyes caught the impression of a skull through the heir’s skin and he knew that silence was his best defence: he settled for a contrite expression in the hopes that it would help.

“Which of your hands betrayed me?” Lloyd asked curtly.

The agent hesitated before raising his left arm. He barely had time to watch his superior’s nod before strong hands had clamped onto each of his elbows and forced him toward the wooden bench. As his right arm was bent behind his back, the left was stretched outward, across the smooth surface. From the awkward position, he could barely see what was happening, but with his heart hammering in his chest and at the flash of a sharp, metallic edge, Kipling began to struggle against his captors.

The heir slid a compact, machete-like blade from a sheath beside the leather bag and inspected it casually. Satisfied, he leant down close to the agent’s ear and whispered, “I trust that after today you will recall my instructions with more clarity.” The blade whistled through the air and landed with a dull thunk in the wood beneath the agent’s wrist.

Lloyd barely glanced at his handiwork as his thugs released their captive and the agent fell to the floor and clutched his newly made stump with his face set in a silent scream. The heir tossed his weapon aside and turned to stroll toward the exit, leaving one final thought in his wake, “Quiet your ego, Mr Kipling, or I will take your head as companion for your hand.”

With purposeful strides, he made his way through the mostly deserted building and out into the harsh light of day. A non-descript black car waited for him there and he slid into the back seat without a word to the figure holding the door open. Every action had a purpose and his were as carefully calculated as those of a worthwhile strategist. His phone rang as expected and Commander Bruttius’ even voice came through the receiver.

 _“We are tracking Hugh now. He will not survive the day,”_ she assured him _._ _“I will ensure that the body is dealt with and that the boy’s life is not in danger before joining you.”_

“Do not make me wait, Cassandra. I dislike Paris but must be present when you disentomb the bones.”

 _“At your command, sir,”_ Commander Bruttius replied before enquiring after further instructions.

“That will be all,” he told her before ending the call.

In a rare moment of idleness, Mr Lloyd Spenser-Chapman Jr gazed out of his window at the passing scenery and absorbed the vibrant reds and oranges of the dusty ground. _Soon,_ he thought passively.

After nearly two thousand years of planning and waiting for the right signs and opportunities, ‘soon’ was a relative term. ‘Soon’ had crossed his mind a century ago and he had felt the term as a comfort then. Now, with the end so much closer, anticipation finally seeped into his veins.

Finally, his destiny was upon him. The surety with which he’d challenged his father for the rights to Alexander’s kingdom and treasures remained with him still, and whether or not he regretted his decision to seek supernatural help was irrelevant at this point in his existence.

The entity he carried with him – the only constant companion he’d had through the years – gave him the faith to know that the appropriate tools would come to him at the right time. For centuries he had existed in obscurity, gathering knowledge and wealth, cultivating his lineage and sharing his philosophies with a few willing listeners. Somewhere around the twelfth century, he had gained enough influence to begin organising a small following, a covert group of subjects who hung on his every word and were willing to do his bidding. For the next seven hundred years, he focussed his efforts on tracking the Warehouse, acquiring items of power when he was able and gradually introducing his own people to the organisation’s hierarchy.

It wasn’t until the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, when travel across the globe became more common, and the technological breakthroughs of the twentieth century that he’d really felt the passing of time and established a large following.

Not surprisingly, it was easier to be obscure and forgettable in a world that teemed with distracted individuals than it was at a period when communication between towns could take days. Modern habits and cultures made people isolated in a way that a lonely shepherd on a hill never had been. This suited him fine. Those who flocked to his churches, desperate for guidance, would offer the perfect barrier between and his challengers. He could not afford to allow human casualties to stand in his way and the fact that Helena Wells-Bering was now more concerned with protecting the masses, meant that her children likely would too.

Christina was an apt challenger. Distilled into her were all the qualities that he looked for in his prospective bearers and from her remains, at long last, he would claim his victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm overly obsessed with cliff hangers, I know! Fingers crossed that it won't be too long until I'm ready to post again. Watch this space for The Battle - Part Two!
> 
> Comments are invaluable. I need all the motivation I can get!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are much appreciated!


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